Abstract
It has become a common practice in the design and certification of composite laminate components to assume that long-term inservice response can be implied from short-term test results. The variable in this extrapolation of behavior is often the cyclic or quasi-static applied load level. These variations in load level can be the source of changes in the damage accumulation and fracture modes associated with the corresponding response. The present paper brings together results from a series of investigations of several composite laminate and material system types in an effort to identify some of the fundamental differences in the damage accumulation and fracture associated with cyclic loading of continuous fiber reinforced composite laminates at high and low cyclic load amplitudes.
