JOURNAL OF

COMPOSITE
Article M AT E R I A L S
Journal of Composite Materials
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Fatigue damage model for Reprints and permissions:
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fibre-reinforced polymers at DOI: 10.1177/0021998318773466
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different temperatures considering
stress ratio effects

Caroline Lüders1,2 , Daniel Krause2 and Janko Kreikemeier2

Abstract
Most of the existing fatigue models for fibre-reinforced polymers are limited to a specific use case. The investigation
presented in this paper provides a progressive fatigue damage model that can be used for fatigue analysis of composite
structures under general loading conditions and at arbitrary ambient temperatures. The model is based on an existing
approach that already considers mean stress and degradation effects. This model is extended for predicting fatigue
damage at general loading conditions. To incorporate the effect of ambient temperatures, material and model parameters
are defined temperature dependent. The new model is validated using two composite materials and different loading
conditions as well as under both room and high temperatures. The model achieves a good prediction quality for the
analysed materials, loading conditions and temperatures. This demonstrates that the proposed model is not limited to a
specific use case but is able to simulate fatigue of laminated composites under general loading conditions.

Keywords
Composites, fatigue, progressive damage modelling, mean stress effect, stress ratio effect, temperature, fibre-reinforced
polymers, carbon fibre, epoxy resin

Introduction degradation into account, and it considers the mean

Due to their excellent mass specific stiffness and
strength, fibre-reinforced plastics (FRP) are used in a
wide range of industrial applications, e.g. in aeronautic,
space, and automotive sectors. In many of these appli-
cations, FRP structures not only have to sustain high
static loads but are also subjected to cyclic loading con-
ditions. Various models exist for lifetime prediction and
fatigue damage calculation for FRP. But most of these
models focus on a specific application, e.g. a specific
load case or a specific material, whereby the transfer
to other applications is often not possible.1 Degrieck
and Van Paepegem1 review many models and identify
three principal approaches used for fatigue modelling
of FRP: fatigue life models, phenomenological degrad-
ation models and (mechanism based) progressive
damage models. The model by Shokrieh and
Lessard2,3 is categorized in the latter category and is
being recognized as a promising approach for fatigue
damage modelling.1 It is independent of the specific lay-
up and geometry, it takes gradual stiffness and strength
stress and load sequence effects. However, the authors
of this contribution find out that the model is not
defined for a fully reversed shear loading. Therefore,
one goal of this paper is to make the approach by
Shokrieh and Lessard applicable also to this loading
condition.
In industrial applications, FRP structures are not
only subjected to cyclic loading at room temperature.
Instead, the ambient temperature could be in the cryo-
genic regime, for example in hydrogen storage applica-
tions,4 or the temperature could be very high, or both,
1
Institute of Adaptronics and Function Integration, Technical University
Braunschweig, Braunschweig, Germany
2
Institute of Composite Structures and Adaptive Systems, German
Aerospace Center, Braunschweig, Germany
Corresponding author:
Caroline Lüders, Technical University Braunschweig, Langer Kamp 6,
Braunschweig, Lower Saxony 38106, Germany.
Email: c.lueders@tu-braunschweig.de
2 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

e.g. in space applications.5–7 The structural durability

in these applications has to be proven also for cyclic
loads at these high or low temperatures. As the tem-
perature significantly affects the fatigue life,8,9 it should
be considered in the fatigue damage model. That is why
another subject of this paper is to formulate the pre-
sented model based on the approach by Shokrieh and
Lessard2,3,10 temperature dependent. The application of
the model for predicting fatigue at varying tempera-
tures is demonstrated using high temperature (100 C)
fatigue data for model calibration. This provides a
progressive fatigue damage model that could be used
for fatigue analysis of FRP structures under general
loading conditions even at different ambient
temperatures.
The first part of the paper introduces the basic ideas
of the approach by Shokrieh and Lessard and shows
why their model is not defined for a fully reversed shear
loading. A modification of the model is proposed and
deduced to overcome this restriction. The suitability of
the new model for fatigue life prediction is demon-
strated for two different carbon fibre-reinforced
plastics (CFRP) under different loading conditions at
room temperature. This also includes the application
to a fully reversed shear loading. The applicability
of the model to fatigue at other temperatures is
shown in the following section using fatigue test data
at 100 C.

Modified progressive fatigue damage

model based on Shokrieh and Lessard
For the purpose to develop a model to simulate the
fatigue behaviour of fibre-reinforced composites under
general fatigue loading conditions and different ambi-
ent temperatures, the model proposed by Shokrieh and
Lessard2,3 is chosen as basis, due to its capabilities as
outlined in the introduction. The model aims to be gen-
erally applicable to the fatigue of composites, but the
authors found out, that it could not be used for fully
reversed (stress ratio R ¼  1) shear loading. The calcu-
lation of the master curve parameters used in the model
by Shokrieh and Lessard is modified to overcome these
restrictions. Additionally, the model is extended to be
suitable for fatigue life predictions at different ambient
temperatures.
In this section, the modified and extended model is
described. This includes a short summary of the model
proposed by Shokrieh and Lessard. For briefness,
equations of the original model are only presented if
they are also used in the modified model. For further
details the reader is referred to the publications of
Shokrieh and Lessard.2,3,10 Figure 1 shows the flow-
chart of the proposed progressive fatigue damage
model. The framework is quite similar to that of
Figure 1. Flowchart of the proposed progressive fatigue
damage model based on Shokrieh and Lessard.2,3,10
Shokrieh and Lessard,3 also the overall structure is
not changed. The modifications and extensions to
make the model suitable for fatigue prediction of fully
reversed shear loading and fatigue at different ambient
temperatures are made in the individual components of
the model, which are:
. stress analysis,
. failure analysis,
. fatigue life calculation,
. sudden material properties degradation and
. gradual material properties degradation.
The framework is implemented as user defined
material routine (UMAT) and provided for usage
within the commercial finite element software ABAQUS.
For high cycle fatigue analysis, passing through
every single cycle is computationally extremely
Lüders et al.
expensive. Therefore, a cycle jump algorithm is imple-
mented, extrapolating the damage from one cycle to a
number of cycles in advance. This way, a calculated
cycle represents the behaviour for a block of several
cycles. Since this assumes constant loads and material
parameters in the range of the presented cycle block,
the change in material properties by degradation must
be small over the cycle jump. To minimise the extrapo-
lation error, the cycle jump parameter
n should be
chosen accordingly.
In the following subsections, the major components
of the progressive fatigue damage model are described
in more detail. All variables used in the equations are
explained at the first mention and are also listed in the
nomenclature given at the end of this paper.
Stress analysis
A stress calculation approximating the real stresses as
good as possible is an essential basis of the fatigue and
damage prediction as both are functions of the material
stress state. The stress analysis is based on the level of
the unidirectional (UD) ply, for which the stress-strain
relation in equation (1) is used.
ij ¼ Cijkl ðTÞ  "kl ð1Þ
The material coordinate system of the unidirectional
ply is defined as shown in Figure 2. Material direction 1
is defined in fibre direction, and direction 3 denotes the
thickness direction of the ply. The elasticity tensor
Cijkl ðTÞ depends on the engineering constants of the
unidirectional ply. In order to capture the effect of tem-
perature T, temperature dependent values are used.
Shokrieh and Lessard assume transverse isotropy to
Figure 2. Material coordinate system of unidirectional fibre
composite ply.
3
set up the elasticity matrix. As the material may lose
its transverse isotropy with emerging damage, the mod-
ified model uses the more general orthotropic material
formulation.11 The material behaviour is modelled lin-
early elastic until failure for the normal material behav-
iour and nonlinear for the shear components in
12-plane and 13-plane. Following the argumentation
of Shokrieh,2 the transverse shear behaviour in
23-plane is assumed to be linear until failure. To con-
sider the nonlinearity in the 12 and 13 shear compo-
nents, Shokrieh and Lessard use the model proposed by
Hahn and Tsai.12 They calculate an instantaneous,
effective shear modulus G,  depending on the initial
shear modulus G of the linear stress-strain regime and
the current shear stress , by equation (2). In this equa-
tion, the parameter HT controls the degree of nonli-
nearity and is determined by curve fitting of
experimental data. To incorporate the temperature
effect, the fitting has to be done for different tempera-
tures T.
1
G ¼ 1
ð2Þ
GðTÞ þ 3HT ðTÞ 2
The authors discovered that the model of Hahn and
Tsai used by Shokrieh and Lessard was not able to
capture the strong nonlinear shear behaviour of some
materials analysed in this study. Therefore, an alterna-
tive shear model is implemented which is able to
describe higher degrees of nonlinearity. The chosen
model is used by KRAUSE to describe the nonlinear
part of the equilibrium relation of epoxy.13 Here, the
shear stress , depending on the shearing strain  is
expressed in the following way.
GðTÞ
¼  ð3Þ
expðK ðTÞjjÞ
The material parameter K is obtained from
experimental data and controls the degree of nonlinear-
ity. Linear material behaviour is included by
choosing K ¼ 0. The limit stress value of this
model for high strains is zero and a stress maximum
is reached at ð ¼ 1=K ,  ¼ G=e  K Þ. Again, for con-
sidering the influence of temperature, the parameters G
and K have to be determined at the different
temperatures T.
Failure analysis and sudden material
properties degradation
Cyclic loads considered in the high cycle fatigue regime
are comfortably lower than the virgin static strength.
4 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

However, due to material fatigue induced degradation, If N 5 0, the inter-fibre failure is expressed by
the current material strength may fall below the current
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
   2
stress state and induce static failure. This phenomenon
2 NT 2 NL
is captured using failure criteria and sudden material 1  ðqc  N Þ þ A þ
RNT X12 ðT, nÞ
degradation rules. Shokrieh and Lessard use Hashin14
type failure criteria to indicate failure. Stiffnesses and þ qc   N ð7Þ
strengths in the failure criteria are expressed as func-
tions of number of cycles n, stress state and stress ratio. Xt22 ðT, nÞ and X12 ðT, nÞ are the current compressive
If a failure criterion is met, Shokrieh and Lessard transverse strength and the in-plane shear strength of
degrade the material properties suddenly by setting the UD ply at the current temperature T and load cycle
them to a value close to zero. Depending on the failure n, respectively. The fracture resistance RA NT is deter-
mode, it is decided which material parameters are mined by
reduced and which are left unchanged. For example,
a fibre failure mode is assumed to be catastrophic and Xc22 ðT, nÞ
RA
NT ¼   ð8Þ
affects all material properties. For a detailed view on 2 1 þ pcNT
the used degradation rules, the reader is referred to the
publications of Shokrieh and Lessard.2,3 The terms qt and qc are defined as
In the first World-Wide Failure Exercise
(WWFE-I),15 it was found that the two dimensional ptNT 2
 NT þ XNL
pt
2
 NL
RA
criteria formulated by Puck16 yield more accurate qt ¼ NT 12
2 þ 2
NT
results than Hashin’s criteria.17 Therefore, in the NL
pcNT pc
modified model the authors propose to use the Puck 2
 NT þ XNL 2
 NL
RA 12
failure criteria16 in their three dimensional representa- qc ¼ NT
2 þ 2
ð9Þ
tion. Puck distinguishes between fibre and inter- NT NL
fibre failure. Fibre failure in tension (11  0) is
expressed by According to the recommendation of Puck,16 the
gradient parameters are set to
11
1 ð4Þ
Xt11 ðT, nÞ ptNT ¼ 0:15 pcNT ¼ 0:15
ptNL ¼ 0:3 pcNL ¼ 0:2 ð10Þ
and fibre failure in compression (11 5 0) by
  Analogous to the assumptions of Shokrieh and
 11  Lessard, fibre failure is assumed to be catastrophic
 
Xc ðT, nÞ  1 ð5Þ
and all elasticity parameters as well as all strengths
11
are set to almost zero in case of fibre failure, see equa-
In equations (4) and (5), Xt11 ðT, nÞ and Xc11 ðT, nÞ are tion (11). For numerical stability reasons the param-
the current tensile and compressive strengths of the uni- eters are not set to exactly zero but to 5% of their
directional ply in fibre direction at the current ambient initial value. Within the investigations of this paper,
temperature T. The value already incorporates the this is found to be a suitable compromise between
gradual degradation effect due to the increasing numerical stability of the solution algorithm and a
number of load cycles n, described later. physically plausible depiction of the progressive
Inter-fibre failure is expressed by the stress state of damage mechanism.
the fracture plane. Three stresses act at the fracture 2 3 2 3
plane: the normal stress  N, the transverse-transverse E11 12 Xt11 0 0 0
shear stress  NT and the transverse-longitudinal shear 6 13 c 7
X11 7 6 0 07
6 6 7
stress  NL. If N  0, the inter-fibre failure criterion is 6 7 6 7
6 E22 t 7 6 07
expressed as 6 21 X22 7 60 0 7
6 c 7 6 7
6 23 X22 7 6 0 07
6 7 6 7
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi 6 E33 Xt33 7 60 0 07
 2 ffi 6 31 7 ! 6 7 ð11Þ
1 6 7 6 7
1  qt N2 6 32 Xc33 7 6 0 7
Xt22 ðT, nÞ 6 7 6 7
6 G12 7 6 07
sffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
 2   6 X12 7 60 7
6 7 6 7
NL NT 2 4 G13 X13 5 40 05
þ þ A þ qt  N ð6Þ
X12 ðT, nÞ RNT G23 X23 0 0
Lüders et al. 5

The degradation rules in case of inter-fibre failure dif-

fer from the rules of Shokrieh and Lessard. The new
model reduces all matrix-dominated elasticity param-
eters and strengths, see equation (12).
2 3 2 3
E11 12 Xt11 E11 12 Xt11
6 13 c 7
X11 7 6 13 Xc11 7
6 6 7
6 7 6 7
6 E22 21 Xt22 7 60 0 0 7
6 7 6 7
6 c 7 6 7
6 23 X22 7 6 0 0 7
6 7 6 7
6 E33 t 7
X33 7 ! 6 0 7
6 31 60 0 7 ð12Þ
6 c 7 6 7
6 32 X33 7 6 0 0 7
6 7 6 7 Figure 3. Schematic Constant Life Diagram (CLD).
6 G12 X12 7 60 0 7
6 7 6 7
6 7 6 7
4 G13 X13 5 40 0 5 Consequently, equation (13) is not valid for a fully
G23 X23 0 0 reversed shear loading. To overcome this restriction
and to make the model applicable to fatigue at fully
reversed shear loading, a new approach for the master
curve and fatigue load parameter is derived and
described in the following.
Fatigue life calculation
The stress ratio and load level dependent description of
The fatigue life calculation proposed by Shokrieh and parameter u in equation (13) is derived by Gathercole18
Lessard is based on a master curve approach which from equation (14). This equation describes constant life
presents SN curves of different stress ratios in one lines (CLL) in a normalized Haigh diagram.
single two-parameter master curve. This model is
called normalized fatigue life model. It calculates the a ¼ fð1  qÞu ðc þ qÞv ð14Þ
fatigue life of an unidirectional ply under uniaxial
stress state using equation (13) developed by Haigh diagrams, also called constant life diagrams
Gathercole18 (CLD), consider mean stress effects and the aniso-
morphic character of fatigue data of composites. They
lnða=fÞ   plot the load amplitude versus the mean stress for dif-
u¼ ¼ C þ D  log10 Nf ð13Þ
ln½ð1  qÞðc þ qÞ ferent fatigue lives. Points of equal fatigue life can be
connected to constant life lines (CLL), see Figure 3. For
First, the parameter u is calculated using the load FRP, often normalized CLD are used, where stress
parameters  a (stress amplitude),  m (mean stress) and amplitude and mean stress are normalized by the tensile
the material constant f. The load parameters are nor- strength Xt. Equation (14) is one approach to describe
malized by the tensile strength Xt to give a ¼ a =Xt and the CLL in a normalized Haigh diagram mathematic-
q ¼ m =Xt . The ratio of the compressive strength Xc to ally. It describes bell-shaped CLL. The parameters u
the tensile strength Xt gives c. The linear equation relat- and v are responsible for the shape of the right or the
ing u and log10 ðNf Þ using the fitting parameters C and left wing of the bell, respectively. If u and v are equal, a
D is called master curve. Fitted using test data of a symmetric curve is obtained. Generally speaking, the
small number of stress ratios, this master curve is able parameters u, v and f depend on the fatigue life,
to predict the fatigue life at arbitrary loading condi- which means, that for each CLL an own set of the
tions. Theoretically, SN data of one single stress ratio parameters can be obtained in a fitting process. Doing
are sufficient to calibrate the model, but, obviously, so, depending on the material, it may be found that
using data of more R-ratios yields a more accurate cali- some parameters show a very low dependency on the
bration and prediction. fatigue life Nf. For example, Adam et al.19,20 observe u
Checking the range of validity of equation (13), a and v both to be independent of Nf and equal to one.
division by zero becomes apparent if c ¼ 1 and q ¼ 0. This results in a quadratic constant life function. The
This could be for a fully reversed loading with m ¼ 0, parameter f is found to be dependent on the fatigue life
c
where q ¼ Xmt ¼ 0, and if c ¼ XXt ¼ 1. For commonly and is interpreted as fatigue load parameter. This
used composites, in longitudinal and transverse mater- approach is found to be inappropriate for the by
ial direction, the tensile and compressive strength are Gathercole et al.18 studied material. In the approach
seldom equal. But in a shear load case, both, Xt and Xc, of Gathercole et al.,18 u and v are found to be equal
are set to the shear strength and then are equal. (symmetric CLL) and to be dependent on the fatigue
6 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

life. The parameter f is taken as a material constant
which does not depend on the fatigue life. This results
in the master curve used by Shokrieh and Lessard
(equation (13)), where u is the fatigue load parameter.
In this paper, a new approach based on equation
(14) is presented. In the following, the derivation is
exemplarily shown using room temperature fatigue
data of a CFRP made of an IM7-type fibre and an
epoxy resin with a fibre volume fraction of 62%.
These test data are determined by the Fraunhofer
Institute for Mechanics of Materials (IWM) and the
Industrieanlagen-Betriebsgesellschaft mbh (IABG).
This database includes test data of unidirectional
laminates with fibre angles of 0 and 90 for stress
ratios with positive and negative mean stresses as
well, whereas for many other materials only test data
for positive mean stresses are available. Thus, both
sides of the bell-shaped CLL can be determined.
Additionally, shear data for fully reversed loading are
available which are used to proof the applicability of
the new model on this load case. For clarity, the new
approach is explained using the fatigue data of trans-
verse loading for stress ratios R ¼ 0:1,  3:96, 10:0.
These data are obtained from unidirectional specimens
with a fibre angle of 90 with respect to the load direc-
tion. In a first step, the fatigue test data are plotted into
a normalized Haigh diagram. To determine the stress
amplitude and mean stress for given life cycles Nf, the
SN curves described by a power law function given in
equation (15) are used.
Xt22 ¼ 36 MPa and plotted in a normalized Haigh dia-
gram. Using these data, CLL are fitted by equation (14)
and the parameters f, u and v are determined by a least-
square fit. The parameters are determined separately
for each life cycle in order not to influence the fitting
results by additional assumptions and restrictions. The
fitting result is visualised in Figure 4. As stated by
Kawai et al.,21–23 the maximum amplitude is near the
critical stress ratio defined by the ratio of compressive
to tensile strength (Rcr ¼ XXct ) which is 3.94 in this case
(Xc ¼ 143 MPa).
The obtained parameters are listed for each life cycle
in Table 2. The given values of the Pearson’s correl-
ation coefficient in the tables show, that the equation
of the CLL (equation (14)) is clearly defined by the
three data points. The average relative deviation r
from the mean value evaluated across all fatigue lives
is greatest for the parameter f. The other two param-
eters are barely changing with life cycles. Therefore, the
authors assume u and v to be constant with fatigue lives
and repeat the fitting procedure. Now, the parameters u
and v are not determined for each life cycle separately

SN ¼ A  NBf ð15Þ

In this equation,  SN is the maximum stress  max in

case of R-ratios with jRj 5 1 (tension-dominated load
cases) and SN ¼ jmin j for R-ratios with jRj 4 1 (com-
pression-dominated load cases). Knowing the R-ratio,
 m and  a can be computed from  SN. The parameters
A and B are given in Table 1 for the investigated mater-
ial and stress ratios. To avoid extrapolation much
beyond the tested cycle regime, stress amplitudes and Figure 4. Resulting CLL from curve-fitting of cyclic test data
mean stresses are computed only for the fatigue lives with u, v and f free for all life cycles Nf.
102 , 103 , 104 , 105 , 106 , which are covered by the experi-
mental data. Stress amplitudes and mean stresses are
then normalized using the tensile transverse strength Table 2. Curve-fitting parameters for CLL, u, v and f free for all
life cycles Nf.

Nf f u v Correlation
Table 1. SN curve parameter at loading transversely to the 2
fibre direction at different stress ratios. 10 0.023 2.235 2.574 1.0000
103 0.021 2.237 2.542 1.0000
Stress ratio R A B
104 0.019 2.252 2.523 1.0000
0.1 29.655 0.028 105 0.017 2.267 2.491 1.0000
3.96 145.241 0.074 106 0.017 2.272 2.422 1.0000
10.0 143.097 0.027 r 9.72% 0.60% 1.73%
Lüders et al. 7

Figure 6. Variation of fatigue load parameter f with life cycles,

Figure 5. Resulting CLL form curve-fitting of cyclic test data curve fit using power law.
with u and v forced to be constant.

Table 3. Curve-fitting parameters for CLL, u and v forced to be

constant.

Nf f u v Correlation

102 0.022 2.282 2.558 0.9996

103 0.020 2.282 2.558 0.9999
104 0.018 2.282 2.558 1.0000
105 0.016 2.282 2.558 0.9995
106 0.015 2.282 2.558 0.9981

but are optimised in such a way, that they give the best
approximation over all life cycles. Parameter f is still
allowed to be different for different fatigue lives.
Figure 5 visualises the resulting CLL and Table 3
gives the obtained parameters. The correlation coeffi-
cient obtained is at least 0.99. Restricting the param-
eters u and v to be constant thus does not affect the
fitting quality and is therefore a reasonable assumption.
The parameter f, interpreted as fatigue load parameter,
decreases with increasing fatigue life. Its variation with
fatigue life is shown in Figure 6. It is very well described
by a power law function. Equation (16) summarises the
mathematical expression of the fatigue load parameter f
and its relation to the fatigue life. This equation
describes the new master curve approach. The param-
eters u, v, C and D are obtained from the curve fitting
exemplarily shown in this section.
a and q ¼ c, that is a mean stress reaching the tensile or
f¼ ¼ C  ND
ð 1  qÞ u ð c þ qÞ v f
In contrast to the master curve approach used by
Shokrieh and Lessard, the constant life lines are not
necessarily symmetric, as u and v are not forced to be
Figure 7. Master curve representing fatigue test data at differ-
ent stress ratios.
equal. This makes the model more flexible for applica-
tion on a wide range of materials. Different from the
model used by Shokrieh and Lessard assuming u and v
to be constant with fatigue life, results in qualitatively
similar shapes of the CLL, that is a similar mean stress
effect, for each fatigue life. This seems to be a reason-
able assumption for the investigated material. The most
relevant advantage of the new model over the model
used by Shokrieh and Lessard is its applicability to all
load cases and R-ratios, especially for fully reversed
shear loading. Equation (16) is only invalid for q ¼ 1
ð16Þ
compressive strengths, respectively. In this case, static
material failure would occur and the fatigue model
would no longer be of use.
Figure 7 shows the master curve resulting from the
described fitting process. The plotted test data of the
three different stress ratios are well approximated by
8 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)
Figure 8. Verification of master curve approach by comparing
experimental SN data with model prediction.
Figure 9. Verification of model prediction capability for mean
stress influence by comparing experimental SN data with model
calibrated with smaller test database.
the master curve. This is underlined by the fatigue pre-
diction using the master curve shown in Figure 8. The
graph plots the applied stress against the number to
failure of cycles for both, model and experiment. For
tension-dominated load cases with jRj 5 1, the max-
imum stress  max and for compression-dominated
load cases with jRj 4 1, the absolute value of the min-
imal applied stress jmin j is used. The comparison veri-
fies the master curve approach as it can capture the
experimental SN data of different stress ratios very
well. Obviously, this is only a model verification and
not a validation, as data are predicted which are used
for calibration. The validation and prediction capabil-
ities of the model will be presented in the next sections.
The model should be able to predict fatigue life also
at stress ratios which are not used for master curve
fitting. In order to perform a first validation, the
Figure 10. Investigation of model robustness by using fatigue
test data at only one single stress ratio for model calibration and
comparing the prediction results to experimental SN data.
master curve fitting is conducted again with the same
test data, but using the fatigue data of the stress ratios
R ¼ 0.1 and R ¼ 3:96 only. The fatigue data of
R ¼ 10 are not used for this model calibration. The
SN curve prediction using the model parameters u, v
and C, D from a model calibration based on a smaller
database, shown in Figure 9, is of the same quality as
before for the stress ratios R ¼ 0.1 and R ¼ 3:96, as
the data of these stress ratios are used for calibration.
The prediction for R ¼ 10 is similarly accurate as in the
verification example, even though the test data are not
used for calibration. While this is not a proof of the
general model capability for predicting fatigue life at
arbitrary stress ratios, the model robustness demon-
strated by the prediction capabilities indicate that the
assumptions made in the model seem to capture the
characteristic mean stress effect of this material quite
well. As a matter of fact, theoretically it should be pos-
sible to obtain the model parameters from SN data of
one single stress ratio. So, for a further test of the model
robustness, the master curve fitting is repeated using
fatigue data at one stress ratio only. In that way,
three different sets of model parameters u, v, C and D
are generated by the fitting based on fatigue data at
either R ¼ 0.1, R ¼ 3:96 or R ¼ 10.0 only. The predic-
tions with the three parameter sets are compared to the
experimental data in Figure 10. Obviously, the test data
of each R-ratio are best approximated by the model
that was calibrated using the test data of this R-ratio.
While, for the given test data base, the fatigue data at
R ¼ 3:96 and R ¼ 10.0 are also well approximated
using only one of the other two stress ratios for cali-
bration, fatigue at R ¼ 0.1 is satisfying approximated
only when using the test data at R ¼ 0.1 within the fit-
ting procedure. But when only these data are used, the
Lüders et al.
prediction quality for the other stress ratios suffers
greatly. Concluding, in this case, the model parameters
could be mathematically determined from fatigue data
at one single stress ratio but for a satisfying prediction
quality test data at at least two stress ratios should be
used (Figure 9). How many R-ratios are necessary for a
good model calibration might greatly depend on the
material behaviour itself, e.g. the influence of the R-
ratio on the fatigue of the specific material, and on
the degree of scatter of the test data.
The explanations up to now focussed on fatigue life
prediction at room temperature. For lifetime assess-
ment at different temperatures, the master curve par-
ameters u, v, C and D have to be determined at the
temperatures of interest, using fatigue test data at
these temperatures and the fitting procedure described.
Thus, the more general, temperature dependent form of
equation (16) is
a degradation of the Poisson’s ratios.27 This degradation
f¼ uðTÞ v ðT Þ
¼ CðTÞ  ND
f
ðT Þ
ð17Þ
ð 1  qÞ ð c þ qÞ
In equation (17), the relative amplitude and mean
loads a and q as well as the strength ratio c are com-
puted using the corresponding strengths at the current
temperature.
Gradual stiffness and strength degradation
Besides the sudden material degradation caused by a
stress state exceeding the current static strength, mater-
ial properties may degraded due to the cyclic character
of loading. Shokrieh and Lessard model this cycle
based, gradual material degradation by a generalised
residual property degradation technique presented in
detail in the publications of Shokrieh and
Lessard.24,25 The equation for the residual strength of
an unidirectional ply under arbitrary uniaxial fatigue
loading  SN and stress ratio R was rearranged
from Adam et al.26 To incorporate the influence of
temperature, the authors of this paper propose to use
temperature dependent material parameters. Thus,
the residual strength at arbitrary temperature is com-
puted by
 
Xðn,,R,TÞ ¼ SN þ X0 ðTÞ  SN 
"   #ð1TÞ
log10 ðnÞ  log10 ð0:25Þ ðTÞ
1 ð18Þ
log10 ðNf Þ  log10 ð0:25Þ
In equation (18), n is the number of the current cycle,
Nf is the fatigue life at  SN at the current stress ratio R
and X0 ðTÞ is the initial static strength at the current
temperature T. The material parameters ðTÞ and
ðTÞ are obtained from curve fitting of experimentally
9
obtained residual strength data at the temperatures of
interest.
The residual stiffness is calculated using the follow-
ing equation.
 
SN 0 SN
Eðn, , R, TÞ ¼ þ E ðTÞ  
"f ðTÞ "f ðTÞ
"   # ð1TÞ
log10 ðnÞ  log10 ð0:25Þ ðTÞ
1 ð19Þ
log10 ðNf Þ  log10 ð0:25Þ
Here, "f ðTÞ is the average strain to failure at the
given temperature and  ðTÞ and ðTÞ are again
obtained from curve fitting of experimental data at
the temperatures of interest. Defining , ,  and as
functions of temperature allows modelling of differ-
ences in the gradual degradation behaviour at different
temperatures.
The degradation of elastic moduli also demands the
is explained physically by crack formation. Strains in
the degraded material direction result in a further crack
opening and therefore cannot produce lateral contrac-
tion.27 Based on this explanation, in the new model, the
Poisson’s ratios are degraded based on the degradation
factors dii ¼ EEii0 with E0ii being the initial modulus and Eii
ii
being the current modulus.
12 ¼ 012  d11 21 ¼ 021  d22 31 ¼ 031  d33
13 ¼ 013  d11 23 ¼ 023  d22 32 ¼ 032  d33 ð20Þ
The gradual nature of the strength degradation pro-
vides the basis for the damage accumulation rule pro-
posed by Shokrieh and Lessard. Unlike the commonly
used linear damage accumulation by Palmgren28 and
Miner,29 this degradation rule is able to take the load
sequence effect into account, i.e. small loads followed
by large loads might result in different damage than
large loads followed by small loads. Shokrieh and
Lessard propose a constant property transition, exem-
plarily illustrated in Figure 11 for a load block with
higher load  1 followed by a load block with lower
load  2. During the first cycle block with  1, the current
strength follows the residual strength curve of  1. Once
this loading block is complete, the transition to the
second load block is seamless, i.e. the current strength
is kept constant. The corresponding numbers of cycles
is the equivalent cycle n12. A fictional load of n12 cycles
at  2 thus results in the same overall degradation as the
actual load of n1 cycles at  1. After the transition,
n2
cycles are required for the second load block. Adding
the cycle block
n2 to the equivalent cycles n12 gives the
(fictional) cycle number n2 which is now used to calcu-
late the residual strength and residual stiffness after the
10
Figure 11. Damage accumulation approach to consider the
load sequence effect.
second load block. If n2 reaches the fatigue life of load
 2, fatigue failure occurs.
Lifetime prediction at room temperature
The new model is used to predict the fatigue life of two
different CFRP materials at room temperature. For
validation purposes, the simulation results are com-
pared to experimental data and the prediction quality
of the model is evaluated. The first material chosen is a
CFRP made of a IM7-type fibre and an epoxy resin
(KUKDO). The material was investigated within the
project HyMod, funded by the German Federal
Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and is there-
fore named ‘HyMod-material’ in the following. The
material tests are conducted by IWM and IABG.
The second material selected is T8000/2500, which is
chosen for the fatigue tests conducted by Kawai
et al.8,22,23,30–33
For both materials, the model parameters are
obtained by fitting procedures using the static and
cyclic test data available for each material.
Afterwards, finite element models are built for the dif-
ferent specimens and load cases which are analysed.
The simulations are based on a three dimensional
stress state formulation. For this, besides the in-plane
material parameters, also out-of-plane parameters are
required. As for both materials, no out-of-plane mater-
ial tests are conducted, the static and cyclic normal out-
of-plane behaviour (33) is assumed to be equal to the
normal in-plane transverse behaviour (22). The shear
behaviour in 13-plane is assumed to be equal to the
shear behaviour in 12-plane. Before starting the
analysis, the virgin elastic transverse shear modulus
(G23) is estimated by the equation proposed by
Schürmann34
E22
G23 ¼ ð21Þ
2  ð1 þ 23 Þ
Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)
Table 4. Layup of MD specimens of HyMod-material.
Fibre angle Ply thickness (mm)

17.3 0.282
90.0 0.432
70.0 0.23
90.0 0.432
17.3 0.282
laminate thickness 1.658 mm
and is given as input to the material routine. Equation
(21) is only used once before starting the analysis to
define the value of G23 and thus the transverse isotropy
is assumed in the undamaged state only. Afterwards,
the transverse shear modulus is treated as a self-
sufficient parameter that is no longer dependent on
the parameters E22 and 23 and the transverse isotropy
is not any longer assumed. Independently of other elas-
ticity parameters G23 is gradually degraded on basis of
the number of cycles using equation (18) and suddenly
reduced to almost zero if fibre or matrix failure
occurs (equations (11) and (12)). Therefore, the trans-
verse isotropic constraint might be relieved if damage
occurs, as damage is calculated separately for each
material direction. The strength and the cyclic material
parameters for transverse shear are taken from the in-
plane shear data. Even though the initial (virgin) in-
plane and out-of-plane shear strengths are equal, the
damage evolution is independent for each direction
and is based on the individual stress states.
HyMod-material
For the HyMod-material static tests and test data for
tension–tension, tension–compression and compres-
sion–compression fatigue are available for longitudinal
and transverse direction and for in-plane shear. Also
static and cyclic tests on a multidirectional (MD) lamin-
ate with the layup described in Table 4 are conducted.
With these data, the application of the model to load
cases with positive and negative mean stresses is
demonstrated. Especially, the applicability to a fully
reversed shear loading is proofed, which is shown to
be an extended capability compared to the original
model by Shokrieh and Lessard.
The elastic and strength parameters for quasi static
loading are listed in Table 5. As shown in Figure 12, for
the HyMod-material, the nonlinear shear model by
Hahn and Tsai overestimates the shear stresses at
higher shear strains by up to almost 10%. It cannot
capture the high degree of non-linearity shown by this
material. The Krause13 model is a significant better
approximation of the nonlinear shear behaviour.
Lüders et al. 11

Table 5. Material parameters of the HyMod-material at room

temperature.

Material direction 11 22, 33 12, 13

Elasticity parametera
E/G (MPa) 157,534 8862 5310b
12 ¼ 13 ¼ 0:276
23 ¼ 0:346
K ¼ 26:88b

Strength parameter (MPa)

Tension 2564 36 71.6
Compression 696 143

SN curve parameter
R ¼ 0.1 Figure 12. Modelling nonlinear in-plane shear behaviour of the
A (MPa) 2435.91 29.655 66.09 HyMod-material using the model by Hahn and Tsai and the
B (-) 0.016 0.028 0.031 Krause model.
R ¼ 1:0
A (MPa) 740.23 75.87 and the master curve parameters C and D at room tem-
B (-) 0.026 0.109 perature. CLD and master curve for transverse loading
R ¼ 3:96 are already shown in the previous section. For longitu-
A (MPa) 145.24 dinal and in-plane shear loading, the results are shown
B (-) 0.074
in Figures 14 and 15. The determined material and
model parameters are listed in Table 5. The SN
R ¼ 10.0
curves turn out to be relatively flat (small slope, i.e.
A (MPa) 683.31 143.10
parameter B close to zero), this means that small
B (-) 0.008 0.027 changes in stress amplitude or mean stress result in
Master curve parameter very high changes in the fatigue life. Furthermore, fati-
u (-) 1.240 2.282 5.239 gue test data in general are subject to large scatter
v (-) 1.254 2.558 6.490
which highly influences the result of a curve-fitting
algorithm. Interestingly, the model by Yongbo et al.35
C (MPa) 1.421 0.027 1.117
derived by a probabilistic approach point out a relation
D (-) 0.021 0.044 0.143
between the slope of the SN curve and the standard
Degradation parameter deviation (which is a measure of the scatter) of the
 (-) 45 123 6.070 experimental fatigue life data. A small slope correlates
 (-) 0.884 0.1693 1.207 with a high level of scatter. Both can be observed for
 (-) 45 123 6.070
the HyMod-material under in-plane shear loading.
The fitting algorithm searches for the minimum devi-
(-) 0.884 0.169 1.207
ation of function and target data without knowing the
a
Average value from tension and compression tests. physics behind the model. Especially, for a small data-
b
From nonlinear shear fitting. base with large scatter, the best curve-fit possibly
describes the behaviour not plausible while an only
Therefore, the nonlinear shear behaviour in 12- and 13- slightly poorer curve-fit possibly might describe the
plane is described using equation (3) with the param- behaviour more physically. In such a case, the fitting
eters given in Table 5. parameters have to be restricted in a plausible range to
Using the determined elasticity and strength param- allow the curve-fitting to produce best fit parameters
eters of the UD ply, stiffness and strength of the lamin- which lead to physically plausible behaviour. This has
ate are well predicted, see Figure 13. SN curves for to be done for the in-plane shear loading. Here, f is
various loading directions and R-ratios are fitted to forced to decrease with increasing life cycles which
the fatigue data using the power law function in equa- means an increasing fatigue life with decreasing load
tion (15). These parameters, together with equation (15) and seems to be a reasonable assumption. IWM and
are used to draw the normalized Haigh diagram for the IABG have recorded strains and stresses for each load
different loading directions and to perform the fitting cycle so that residual stiffness plots can be created.
procedure to obtain the material parameters u and v From these data, the parameters for residual stiffness
12 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

Figure 13. Experimentally observed and predicted tensile and compressive static behaviour of laminate ½17:3=90=90=90=17:3 of the
HyMod-material. (a) Tensile loading; (b) Compressive loading.

Figure 14. CLD and fitted CLL for the HyMod-material. (a) Longitudinal fatigue loading; (b) In-plane shear fatigue loading.

Figure 15. Master curve representing fatigue test data at different stress ratios for the HyMod-material at room temperature.
(a) Longitudinal fatigue loading; (b) In-plane shear fatigue loading.
Lüders et al.
Figure 16. Experimentally observed and modelled normalized residual stiffness behaviour. (a) Longitudinal fatigue loading;
(b) Transverse fatigue loading; (c) In-plane shear loading.
calculation,  and , are derived. For longitudinal load
direction, residual stiffness data for a maximum load
about 71% of static strength are available. Residual
stiffness in the transverse direction is measured for
three different stress states (50%, 56% and 67% of
static strength) for both, tension and compression
loads. In shear, residual stiffness data for a stress
state with a maximum load about 41% of static shear
strength is used. The comparison between model and
test data is shown in Figure 16. Note that this is not a
prediction but is a demonstration of the suitability of
the model, proposed by Adam et al.26 and used by
Shokrieh and Lessard to describe the real stiffness deg-
radation of the HyMod-material at room temperature.
Due to the excessive number of tests required, no resi-
dual strength data are recorded for the HyMod-
material. A common hypothesis used by several
authors36–39 is that the failure strain under static load-
ing is not affected by fatigue damage. In other words: In
static fracture tests after a different number of load
cycles, the same failure strain "f could be measured.
13
Llobet et al. prove this assumption for a carbon/epoxy
material.36 This approach results in a residual strength
with the same qualitative development as the residual
stiffness. Thus the residual strength parameters can be
set to  ¼  and  ¼ . The comparison of cyclic test
data and lifetime prediction of the model for UD
laminates in Figure 17 shows the quality of the model
calibration. Also, the diagram shows the ability of the
new model to capture fully reversed shear loading
which was not possible with the model proposed by
Shokrieh and Lessard. For validation purposes, the
new model is used to predict the fatigue life of a MD
laminate under different stress states and stress ratios.
IWM tested flat specimen with the layup shown in
Table 4 under axial tensile loading (R ¼ 0.1), axial com-
pression loading (R ¼ 10) and axial fully reversed load-
ing (R ¼  1). As for the UD specimens, the SN curves
of the MD specimen are very flat, see Figure 18.
Additionally, the amount of scatter is high. Even
though the model underestimates the fatigue life for
pure compressive load (R ¼ 10), the quality of the
14 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

Figure 17. Experimental data and model lifetime prediction for UD specimens of HyMod-material. (a) Longitudinal fatigue loading;
(b) Transverse fatigue loading; (c) In-plane shear loading.

Figure 18. Experimental data and model lifetime prediction for Figure 19. Modelling nonlinear in-plane shear behaviour of
MD specimens of HyMod-material. T8000/ 2500 at room temperature using different models.
Lüders et al. 15

prediction is very satisfactory. The influence of stress Table 6. Material parameter of T800H/2500 at room
ratio is captured: Highest fatigue strength are experi- temperature.
mentally observed and also predicted at R ¼ 0.1 and the
Material direction 11 22, 33 12, 13
lowest at R ¼ 10.0.
Elasticity parameter
E/G (MPa) 159,000 9204a 5311b,c
Material T8000/2500
12 ¼ 13 ¼ 0:351
To extend the model validation to an additional mater- 23 ¼ 0:346d
ial, the model is applied to the material T8000/2500. HT ¼ 2:47  108 b,c
Kawai et al.8,22,23,31,32 published a comprehensive fati-
gue data base for off-axis-fatigue and for symmetric Strength parameter (MPa)
laminates of this material. Static material properties Tension 2472 48 79.41e
are also given in the papers. It should be mentioned, Compression 690 68
that no pure shear tests are published. Kawai et al.
derive the elasticity and strength parameters in shear SN curve parameter
from axial tests on unsymmetrical 45 and 10 off-axis R ¼ 0.1
specimens. To this end, they transform the global A (MPa) 2402.88 47.105 74.719
strains and stresses of the specimen into the fibre coord- B (-) 0.056 0.068 0.049
inate system and calculate the in-plane shear strain and R ¼ 1:0
stress of the UD ply.11 For unsymmetrical off-axis A (MPa) 47.188 68.207
laminates with fibre angles different from 45 , in add- B (-) 0.084 0.091
ition to global axial and global transverse strain also R ¼ 0:3
the global shear strain of the off-axis specimen is A (MPa) 2360.755
needed to calculate the local shear strain in the UD B (-) 0.076
ply, i.e. the shear strain in the fibre-coordinate
R ¼ 0.5
system. Mostly, only axial and transverse strains are
A (MPa) 2388.776 43.711 77.145
plotted, as it is the case for the test data published by
Kawai et al.8 This is probably the reason why Kawai B (-) 0.033 0.038 0.028
et al.8 determine the elastic shear behaviour from the Master curve parameter
test data of the 45 -specimen.8 However, the off-axis u (-) 1.938 2.035 1.435
45 -specimen is not suitable to determine the shear v (-) 1.000 1.000 1.000
strength of the UD material, as the specimen fails due
C (MPa) 2.017 0.732 0.796
to a combined stress state of shear and transverse ten-
D (-) 0.079 0.093 0.082
sile stresses with the transverse stress reaching 88% of
the shear stress. The determined shear strength would a
Average value from tension and compression tests.
b 
be highly underestimated. Therefore, Kawai et al. use From
¼ 45 off-axis specimen.
c
the test data of the 10 -specimen8 to determine the From nonlinear shear fitting.
d
Taken form material HyMod-material.
material’s in-plane shear strength. This procedure is e 
From
¼ 10 off-axis specimen.

Figure 20. Experimentally observed static behaviour of off-axis specimens and symmetric laminates of T8000/2500 and model
prediction. (a) Off-axis specimens; (b) Symmetric Laminates.
16
Figure 21. CLD and fitted CLL for material T8000/2500 at room temperature. (a) Longitudinal fatigue loading; (b) Transverse fatigue
loading; (c) In-plane shear fatigue loading.
adopted in this study. Figure 19 shows the extracted
shear behaviour of the unidirectional material. While
the maximum (local) shear stress reported from the 45 -
specimen test data is approximately 40 MPa, the max-
imum shear stress obtained from the 10 -specimen test
data is twice as high. Both, the shear model of Hahn
and Tsai12 and the Krause13 model approximate the
shear behaviour until 40 MPa very well. Above this
stress limit, no experimental data are available for fit-
ting and both models diverge. Using the data up to
40 MPa for fitting, the parameters for the Krause
model are determined to GK ¼ 5572 MPa and
K ¼ 45:23. The maximum stress which can be reached
GK
using these model parameters is eK
¼ 45 MPa which is
far less than the shear strength of 79.41 MPa.
Therefore, the model by Hahn and Tsai must be used.
Using the model by Hahn and Tsai, the static tensile
behaviour of the off-axis specimens can be predicted
quite well, see Figure 20(a). The simulated stress-
strain-curves start to diverge from the experimental
Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)
data when the shear stress reaches the stress limit up
to which data were available for fitting. This is
also observed for the symmetric laminates see
Figure 20(b). While the strengths for the off-axis speci-
mens are captured reasonably well, the strengths for the
symmetric laminates are quite underestimated. The
reason might be the uncertainty of the shear strength
which is associated with determining it from off-axis
specimens.
As there was no direct access to the experimental
results, the fatigue test data are interpreted from the
published graphs. The parameters u, v, C and D for
the master curve (equation (17)) at room temperature
are obtained with the fitting procedure using the pub-
lished test data for the stress ratios R ¼ 0:5, 0:1,  0:3
in fibre direction and R ¼ 0:5, 0:1,  1 in transverse
direction8,32 at room temperature. Similar to the
procedure for the static properties, cyclic material
parameters for in-plane shear are derived using
test data of 10 -specimens. All derived material
Lüders et al.
Figure 22. Master curve representing fatigue test data at different stress ratios for material T8000/ 2500 at room temperature.
(a) Longitudinal fatigue loading; (b) Transverse fatigue loading; (c) In-plane shear fatigue loading.
parameters for T8000/2500 at room temperature are
listed in Table 6.
No fatigue test data are available for negative mean
stresses for T8000/2500. Thus no support points deter-
mine the left side of the bell-shaped curve. The curve
fitting algorithm, searching for the minimum deviation
between model and test data without knowing the
physics behind, may lead to parameters describing a
non-physical behaviour. Therefore, the CLL param-
eters are restricted in very narrow physical-plausibil-
ity-bounds. To force the CLL on both sides to be
¼ 10 , 15 , 30 , 45 . Except for the 10 -
bell-shaped, u and v are restricted to be equal or greater
than one. The obtained fitting results for the CLL are
quite good, as shown in Figure 21. Also, the master
curves in Figure 22 are good approximations of
the fatigue data at different stress ratios. Because of
the high scatter in the fatigue data at R ¼ 0.5
(Figure 22(b)), the master curve represents only the ten-
, the lower the fatigue life of the off-axis
dency of the actual test data. As no residual stiff-
ness data are available for the material T8000/2500,
17
for a first approximation the parameters for the resi-
dual stiffness and strength degradation (, , , ) are
taken from the HyMod-material in Table 5. Now,
all model parameters at room temperature are deter-
mined from calibration test data. The comparison of
the model prediction and the test data for UD speci-
mens of T8000/2500 in Figure 23 shows the good qual-
ity of the calibration. For a first proof of the
predication quality, the model is validated against fati-
gue data of axial loaded off-axis specimens with the
fibre angles
data, which are used to extract the shear fatigue par-
ameters, these data are not used for model calibration.
The validation shows that the fatigue simulation
results are within the scatter of the experimental data.
Figure 24 visualises the influence of the fibre angle on
the fatigue life for different stress ratios. The higher the
fibre angle
specimen. This trend is captured very well by the model.
The best prediction quality is reached for stress ratio
18
Figure 23. Experimental data and model lifetime prediction for UD specimens of T8000/2500 at room temperature. (a) Longitudinal
fatigue loading; (b) In-plane shear loading; (c) Transverse fatigue loading.
R ¼ 1:0 (Figure 24(c)). For the other stress ratios, the
prediction is better for higher off-axis angles
. Because data for lower off-axis angles.
of the high scatter, the SN data of R ¼ 0.5 and R ¼ 0.1
are less well approximated by the master curve. This
explains the higher deviation of the simulation from the
test data for these stress ratios. Axial loading of off-axis
specimens locally generates a multiaxial stress state.
The lower the off-axis angle, the higher the amount of
shear stress in this multiaxial stress state. That means
an approximation of the shear stress as good as possible
is of increasing importance for the fatigue calculation
of lower off-axis angles as the fatigue failure is initiated
by exceeding the fatigue shear strength. Additionally,
the master curve in shear attaches a greater weight to
the fatigue estimation quality. Both, the shear param-
eters for static loading and the shear fatigue data, are
obtained from test results of axial loaded off-axis spe-
cimens which, as discussed before, may lead to some
uncertainty. This could be one reason for the higher
Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)
deviation between model prediction and experimental
Figure 25 shows the capability of the model to cap-
ture the influence of the stress ratio on the off-axis
fatigue behaviour of T8000/2500. For all off-axis
angles, the fatigue strength for fully reversed loading
is lower as for tension-dominated loading. This is
observed in both the experiment and simulation. The
difference in fatigue strength for the two tension-domi-
nated fatigue loads is even difficult to separate from the
experimental data. Especially for transverse loading,
the influence is superposed by a high scatter of the
SN data. That is why the model does not predict a
significant difference in fatigue strength for the stress
ratios R ¼ 0.1 and R ¼ 0.5.
All in all, the model gives a quite good fatigue
life prediction for the off-axis specimens being able
to capture the influence of off-axis angle and stress
ratio.
Lüders et al. 19

Figure 24. Experimentally observed and predicted influence of the fibre angle on the fatigue life of off-axis specimens of T8000/2500
at different stress ratios at room temperature. (a) R ¼ 0.1; (b) R ¼ 0.5; (c) R ¼  1.0.

Usually, CFRP structures in application are made of
multiaxial laminates consisting of several UD plies with
, the higher the fatigue strength. Only
different off-axis angles. To demonstrate the applicabil-
ity of the model to more application-oriented layups,
simulation results are compared to test results on sym-
metric angle-ply laminates ½
3sym 23 and one cross-ply between ½453sym and ½603sym , which is a quite unu-
laminate ½0=903sym 22 For the laminates, fatigue test
data for stress ratios R ¼ 0.1, R ¼  1 and R ¼ 10 are
available. Only for ½453sym , no test data at R ¼  1 are
published. The model is now validated against loading
conditions with negative mean stress (R ¼ 10), which
are not used for fitting.
Similar to the off-axis fatigue life calculation results,
the lifetime prediction of the angle-plies is within the
scatter of the experimental data, see Figures 26 and 27.
Both, experiment and simulation reveal that the cross-
ply laminate shows the highest fatigue strength since
50% of the fibres are orientated in loading direction.
The influence of the fibre angle in the angle-ply
laminates is well predicted by the model: The lower
the fibre angle
one exception is observed in the experimental data for
stress ratio R ¼ 10, shown in Figure 26(b), where no
significant difference in fatigue strength can be seen
sual experimental finding.
Depending on the fibre angle, one tested stress ratio
stands out against the others by significant higher fati-
gue strength, see Figure 27. This is R ¼ 0.1 for the
½303sym (Figure 27(a)) and ½0=903sym -laminate
(Figure 27(d)) and R ¼ 10 for the ½603sym -laminate
(Figure 27(c)). Less significant difference in fatigue
strength is seen between the other stress ratios. These
trends are observed in both, simulation and experiment.
The fatigue behaviour of the ½453sym -laminate is less
dependent on the tested stress ratios in both the simu-
lation and experiment, see Figure 27(b). Also not used
for fitting, the influence of negative mean stress on the
20
Figure 25. Experimentally observed and predicted influence of the stress ratio on the fatigue life of off-axis specimens of T8000/
2500 with different fibre angle at room temperature. (a)
¼ 10 ; (b)
¼ 15 ; (c)
¼ 30 ; (d)
¼ 45 .
fatigue life is well predicted by the model for the angle-
ply laminates. This confirms the used CLL and master
curve approach to capture the influence of the stress
ratio. Only for the ½0=903sym -laminate a difference in
the fatigue strength between R ¼  1 and R ¼ 10 is pre-
dicted that is not observed in the experiment (Figure
27(d)). This might be due to the high scatter in the
transverse loading fatigue data, which largely influences
the master curve and has already found to be a reason
for the few diverging trends in simulation and experi-
ment of the off-axis specimens.
For the analysed laminates and stress ratios, the
proposed fatigue model leads to reasonable lifetime
predications. The influence of fibre angle in off-axis
specimens and in angle- and cross-ply laminates, as
well as the influence of the stress ratio are well captured
by the model.
As an interim summary, what can be noted is that
the new fatigue damage model yields a good fatigue life
Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)
prediction for the analysed materials and load cases at
room temperature. Although this is no proof for gen-
eral applicability, the model demonstrates to be not
limited to a specific laminate or load case but in con-
trast can be applied to a wide range of fatigue loading
with arbitrary stress ratios, even to fully reversed shear
loading which is not possible using the origin model by
Shokrieh and Lessard.
Lifetime prediction at high temperature
In the last section, the capability of the new model to
predict fatigue life at room temperature was demon-
strated for two different materials. But in many appli-
cations, mechanical cyclic loading does not necessarily
occur at room temperatures. Ambient temperatures
could be in the cryogenic or in high temperature
regime. In this section, the applicability of the model
to fatigue at high temperatures is demonstrated for the
Lüders et al.
Figure 26. Experimentally observed and predicted influence of the fibre angle on the fatigue life of symmetric laminates of
T8000/2500 a different stress ratios at room temperature. (a) R ¼  1; (b) R ¼ 10; (c) R ¼ 0.1.
material T8000/2500 whose fatigue life at room tem-
perature is well predicted by the new model as was
shown in the last section.
Test data for model calibration and validation are
again taken from the publications of Kawai
et al.8,22,23,30–33 They conduct fatigue tests for this
material at 100 C. Corresponding static strength are
also given in the papers. Kawai et al.40 determine the
transverse compressive strength at 100 C to be greater
than that at room temperature. This contradicts the
findings for the tensile transverse loading and the inves-
tigations by Lin et al.41 and Miyano and Nakada.42 Lin
et al.41 observed a decreasing of modulus and strength
of a pure epoxy resin with increasing temperatures.
Miyano and Nakada investigate CFRP with the same
matrix material as tested by Kawai et al. (resin 2500 by
TORAY) and measured the matrix-dominated trans-
verse bending strength, which decreases with increasing
21
temperature. The transverse compressive strength also
can be assumed to mostly be dominated by matrix
properties and a decreasing at high temperature is
thus indicated. As there is no other point of reference,
we assume for the compressive strength the same rela-
tive decreasing as for the tensile transverse strength.
This way, the compressive strength at 100 C is defined
to 36.8 MPa. All static material parameters used for the
simulations at 100 C are summarised in Table 7.
Simulating the fatigue behaviour of T8000/2500 at
100 C also requires to determine the static nonlinear
shear parameters at this temperature. The procedure
is equivalent to that for room temperature. In order
to be able to perform fatigue simulations at varying
temperatures in the future, it is advantageous to use
the same shear model for all temperatures. Another
reason for using the shear model of Hahn and Tsai12
for material T8000/2500 also at 100 C is its satisfying
22
Figure 27. Experimentally observed and predicted influence of the stress ratio on the fatigue life of different symmetric laminates of
T8000/2500 at room temperature. (a) ½30-laminate; (b) ½45-laminate; (c) ½60-laminate; (d) ½0=90-laminate.
description of the nonlinear shear behaviour of T8000/
2500 at 100 C as can be seen in Figure 28. As discussed
before, the shear data from the 45 -specimen are the
only off-axis data that can be used to examine the elas-
tic shear behaviour, when no information about the
global shear strains are available. Using these data,
the parameters for the Krause13 model are determined
to be GK ¼ 2782:73 MPa and K ¼ 62:66. These param-
G
eters lead to a stress maximum of e ¼ 15:36 MPa
which is much below the shear strength of 43 MPa
determined from the data of the 10 -specimen. Using
the Model by Hahn and Tsai leads to a satisfactory
prediciton of the static behaviour of off-axis specimens
of T8000/2500 at 100C, ref. Figure 29. For fatigue cal-
culation at 100 C, the model has to be calibrated for
this high temperature. The fitting process is the same as
for room temperature and includes the determination
of the master curve parameters (equation (17)) at
100 C. For this temperature, fatigue test data are
only available for the stress ratio R ¼ 0.1. However,
the model allows the transfer to other stress ratios but
Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)
the prediction quality for other stress ratios might
suffer.
Figure 30 shows the fitting results for the param-
eters u, v and f in terms of CLL. For longitudinal
fatigue loading, the maxima of the CLL are in the
regime of positive mean stresses (i.e. positive values
of q) near the stress ratio R ¼ 0.1. This was also
observed for the material at room temperature
(Figure 21(a)). For transverse loading, the maximum
is in the regime of negative mean stresses (i.e. nega-
tive values of q). Again, this also was observed at
room temperature (Figure 21(b)). In this sense, the
fitting results for CLL for longitudinal and transverse
loading at 100 C seem to be physically plausible. For
in-plane shear loading, the fitting procedure yields a
shift of the CLL’s maximum into the regime of nega-
tive mean stresses. Especially, for in-plane shear load-
ing, this seems not to be physically plausible. This
would mean that negative shear mean stresses are
less critical for the material than positive ones. As
the fatigue behaviour in shear is assumed to be
Lüders et al. 23

Table 7. Material parameter of T800H/2500 at 100 C.

Material direction 11 22, 33 12, 13

Elasticity parameter
E/G (MPa) 156,000 6320 3455a,b
12 ¼ 13 ¼ 0:338
23 ¼ 0:346c
HT ¼ 7:01  107 b,d

Strength parameter (MPa)

Tension 2126 26 43d
Compression 490 36.8

SN curve parameter
R ¼ 0.1
A (MPa) 2179.70 27.48 42.50 Figure 29. Experimentally observed static behaviour of off-axis
B (-) 0.066 0.048 0.034 specimens of T8000/2500 at 100 C and model prediction.

Master curve parameter

influence on fatigue, the master curves at room tem-
u (-) 2.227 2.270 1.435 perature are plotted, too. For longitudinal loading,
v (-) 2.367 1.657 1.000 the fatigue strength normalized by the static strength
C (MPa) 3.791 0.851 0.816 is higher at high temperatures. The master curves for
D (-) 0.044 0.098 0.057 transverse and in-plane shear loading at 100 C only
a
From
¼ 45 off-axis specimen.
differs slightly from that at room temperature. The
b
From nonlinear shear fitting. master curves well approximate the fatigue test data
c
Taken form material HyMod-material. at 100 C, see Figure 32. The absolute fatigue strength
d
From
¼ 10 off-axis specimen. at 100 C is lower than at room temperature, but the
slope of the fatigue curve for longitudinal and trans-
verse loading is quite similar at room temperature
and at 100 C. Also at 100 C, no residual strength
and residual stiffness data are available for material
T8000/2500 and the parameters of the HyMod-mate-
rial are used. This assumes the same gradual degrad-
ation behaviour for T8000/2500 at room and high
temperatures.
After all material and model parameters are deter-
mined for 100 C, the model is used for fatigue simula-
tions of off-axis specimens at this temperature. The
results in comparison with experimental data are pre-
sented in Figure 33. The fatigue life of off-axis speci-
mens at high temperature is well predicted by the
model, the influence of off-axis angle is captured. As
there are no fatigue data at 100 C for other stress
Figure 28. Modelling nonlinear in-plane shear behaviour of ratios, the capability of the model to describe the influ-
T8000/2500 at 100 C using shear models by Krause and Hahn ence of stress ratio at high temperature cannot be
and Tsai. demonstrated, yet.
Also for fatigue at 100 C, using test data at this tem-
perature for model calibration, the new fatigue damage
independent of sign of stress, the fitting procedure is model demonstrates a good prediction quality. Up to
repeated using u and v from room temperature. This now, the fatigue behaviour is analysed at two singular
forces the maximum of the CLL to be at stress ratio temperatures – room temperature and 100 C – only.
R ¼  1, see Figure 30(d). The resultant master curves To evaluate the fatigue behaviour at arbitrary tempera-
for all loading directions are shown in Figure 31. The tures in between these temperatures, the material and
master curve equations at 100 C are also mentioned model parameters (moduli, strengths and master curve
in the graphs. In order to visualize the temperature parameters) could be interpolate between the tested
24
Figure 30. CLD and fitted CLL for material T8000/2500 at 100 C. (a) Longitudinal fatigue loading; (b) Transverse fatigue loading;
(c) Inplane shear loading with u and v not constrained; (d) In-plane shear loading with u and v from room temperature.
temperatures. As yet for T8000/2500 fatigue test data
only at the two named temperatures are available, only
a linear interpolation is possible. As soon as fatigue test
data at further temperatures are present, this interpol-
ation approach has to be verified.
Summary and look forward
The present research outlines a model to evaluate the
fatigue damage behaviour under general loading condi-
tions, even under fully reversed shear loading, at differ-
ent temperatures. It is based on the master curve
approach and on the progressive damage modelling
proposed by Shokrieh and Lessard.2,3 The master
curve equation by Shokrieh and Lessard is modified
in such a manner that it is now valid also for a fully
reversed shear loading which is not the case for the
original model by Shokrieh and Lessard. Further
model modifications proposed by the authors are
1. to describe the in-plane shear behaviour by the non-
linear elastic Krause13 model, if the material
Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)
indicates a high degree of nonlinearity in this mater-
ial direction, that could not anymore be captured
properly by the Hahn and Tsai12 model used by
Shokrieh and Lessard.2,3
2. the incorporation of the three dimensional Puck’s
failure criterion for indication of sudden failure as
its two dimensional form gains more accurate
results in the first World-Wide Failure Exercise
(WWFE-I)15,17 than by the Shokrieh and Lessard
used Hashin’s criterion.
3. the incorporation of the degradation of the
Poisson’s ratios to consider that strains in the
degraded material direction cannot produce lateral
contraction.27
4. to use the more general orthotropic form of the elas-
ticity matrix to consider the loss of transverse isot-
ropy with emerging damage.
Additionally, with the aim to predict fatigue
damage at different temperatures, all material and
model parameters are formulated temperature
dependent.
Lüders et al.
Figure 31. Master curve representing fatigue test data at different stress ratios for material T8000/2500 at 100 C; room tem-
perature results are also plotted for comparison. (a) Longitudinal fatigue loading; (b) Transverse fatigue loading; (c) In-plane shear
loading.
The model’s capability to predict fatigue life at
general loading conditions, including fully reversed
shear loading, is demonstrated for two CFRP
materials at room temperature and for one of these
materials at 100 C. The prediction quality of the
model is good at any analysed loading condition
and temperature for the investigated materials. That
does not prove general applicability of the model
but demonstrates that the model is not limited to one
specific material or load case. The good prediction
results at 100 C for the investigated material suggest
the model’s usability also for fatigue life prediction
at other temperatures. However, the prediction cap-
ability of the new model for fatigue at different tem-
peratures is only shown for one material. It is an
important future task to extend the model validation
for fatigue at different temperatures to other materials,
too. Certainly, in general it is a great test effort to
conduct a comprehensive fatigue characterization,
25
even at room temperature. That is why there are only
very few materials that are comprehensively character-
ized cyclically at room and at different temperatures
and it could be difficult to find an appropriate valid-
ation database.
Until now, the fatigue analysis is conducted at only
two singular temperatures – room temperature and
100 C. These are the temperatures at which test data
exist for the investigated material. An analysis in
between the tested temperatures and at low tempera-
tures is the next logical step. The most common
approach to conduct a fatigue analysis in between the
tested temperatures is an interpolation of the material
and model parameters in between these temperatures.
Verifying this approach requires fatigue test data for at
least one additional temperature. Also, demonstration
for whether the model is able to predict fatigue damage
at lower temperatures requires further fatigue test data
at low temperatures.
26 Journal of Composite Materials 0(0)

Figure 32. Experimental data and model lifetime prediction for UD specimens of T8000/2500 at 100 C; room temperature results
are also plotted for comparison. (a) Longitudinal fatigue loading; (b) Transverse fatigue loading; (c) In-plane shear loading.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to gratefully thank the Fraunhofer
Institute for Mechanics of Materials (IWM) and the
Industrieanlagen-Betriebsgesellschaft mbh (IABG) for sup-
plying their fatigue test data which is a significant contribu-
tion to the results of this paper.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

Figure 33. Experimental data and model lifetime prediction for
off-axis specimens of T8000/2500 at 100 C.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial sup-
port for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article: The authors acknowledge the financial support by the
Federal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy of
Germany in the project HyMod.
Lüders et al.
ORCID iD
Caroline Lüders http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9661-7819
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Appendix 1 fracture plane

Formula symbols
Indices and superscripts
E current E-modulus
G current shear modulus 0 related to the initial state
G effective shear modulus c related to compression
n current number of cycles cr related to a critical state
Nf number of cycles to failure HT related to Hahn and Tsai model
pcNL gradient parameter for Puck’s criteria i, j related to material direction,
ptNL gradient parameter for Puck’s criteria i, j ¼ 1, 2, 3
pcNT gradient parameter for Puck’s criteria K related to Krause model
ptNT gradient parameter for Puck’s criteria max related to the maximum
q mean stress normalized by tensile min related to the minimum
strength t related to tension