Application of the Hartman–Schijve equation to represent Mode I and Mode II fatigue delamination growth in composites

This paper discusses the potential of a variant of the Hartman–Schijve equation to represent both Modes I and II constant amplitude delamination growth in composites. To this end we show that the delamination growth rate da/dN can often be related to (Δ√G − Δ√Gth)α, where α is approximately 2. As such the exponent in this relationship is considerably lower than the exponent in “Paris like” power law representations. We also show that this...