Fatigue Damage Modeling of Composite Structures: the ONERA Viewpoint

The aim of this paper is to present the fatigue damage modeling approach developed at ONERA for the fatigue life prediction of composite materials and structures. This paper is divided into five sections. The first one explains why the already developed and validated methods for fatigue life modeling of metals and alloys cannot be directly applied to composite materials. Thus, the proposal of an efficient fatigue model for composite materials necessitates a good understanding of the specific damage mechanisms that occur under static and fatigue loadings of composites. These damage mechanisms are detailed in the second section. Then, the next section presents the different types of models reported in the literature; among them, the progressive damage models, to which special attention will be paid. Finally, structural simulations and constant-life diagrams will be considered in the last sections.