Influence of Reversed Fatigue Loading on DamageEvolution of Cross-Ply Carbon Fibre Composites.

Microcrack formation and delamination growth are the main damage mechanisms in thefatigue of composites. They lead to significant stiffness loss, introduce stress concentrations andcan be the origin of subsequent damage events like buckling or fibre breakage, especially in case ofshear and compression stresses during load reversal. Fatigue experiments of carbon fibre reinforcedlaminates were conducted at several stress ratios and analysed in terms of crack and delaminationgrowth.