Composites have gained widespread use in a range of industrial applications. In many cases, they are
subjected to cyclic loads which means their fatigue performance must be evaluated and predicted.
Despite their wide use, assessing fatigue performance remains a challenging task due to the
heterogenous nature of composites, which results in damage being arrested and redirected as it travels
through the interfaces of the composite. Although failure is dependent on lay-up and loading, most
fatigue studies have been conducted on uniaxial tensile or compressive loading, and the effect of lay-up
is rarely assessed in a systematic manner. Therefore, the present work aims to provide insight into the
effect of laminate architecture on damage propagation in multidirectional open-hole composite
specimens subjected to cyclic shear loading. Data is collected using full-field, non-contact measurement
techniques: high fidelity digital image correlation (DIC) is used to capture surface strains and damage,
while thermoelastic stress analysis (TSA) is used to assess surface stresses, with the potential to reveal
interior damage evolutions
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