Probabilistic fatigue life prediction of multidirectional composite laminates

A new damage accumulation model for fatigue life prediction of composite laminates is proposed in this study. The model is constructed on the ply level and uses a new multiaxial damage index to consider the damage caused by different stress components. The fatigue life is predicted based on the proposed model and experimental results of the unidirectional laminates. The numerical results are compared with the experimental data for balanced laminates. The predicted fatigue lives agree with the experimental observations very well. The methodology for probabilistic fatigue life prediction and reliability calculation is also presented.