A review of developments and understanding of transverse cracking and delamination in cross-ply laminates is presented. First, experimental investigations reported in the literature for analyzing the development of transverse cracking are considered. Next, characteristics of different models for evaluating the stress distribution in the damaged laminates are developed. It is shown how these models associated with the statistical description of strength or energy released in the 90° plies make it possible to describe the development of transverse cracking in monotonic or fatigue loading. According to the nature of cross-ply laminates, transverse cracking is not, however, sufficient for describing the development of transverse cracks in 90° plies in the case of monotonic loading. In this case, the delamination process induced at transverse crack tips is to be considered for describing the experimental results. There are 108 references in this review article.
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