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The fatigue process in laminated composite materials includes several damage mechanisms that result in the degradation of the structure. One of the most important and critical failure modes of composite material is interlaminar damage or delamination. In this work, a finite element model has been developed in combination with the virtual crack closure technique (VCCT) to analyse the effect of temperature on the mixed-mode interlaminar fracture toughness and fatigue delamination growth rate of a carbon/epoxy material, namely IM7/8552 subjected to transient thermal and mechanical loadings that are simultaneously applied. The developed model may serve as the basis for treating different types of thermal and mechanical loading, different stacking sequences and thickness of lamina in order to build safe working conditions for composite laminates.
