Interlaminar fracture specimens are widely used for studying the inter
laminar toughness of composite laminates. The goal of this paper is to
analyse delamination specimens within the framework of a damage meso-
modelling of composite laminates. In this type of modelling a laminate
is described as a stacking sequence of homogeneous layers and interla
minar interfaces. The interface is assumed to be damageable in order t
o model the delamination phenomena. In the case of the propagation of
a pre-existing crack, the main parameters for the interface model iden
tification are the critical energy release rates. Delamination specime
ns are here modelled as two beams connected by a damageable interface.
By means of a Finite Element Scheme used in connection with a Riks-li
ke algorithm; comparisons between numerical simulation and experiments
have been performed for a wide class of specimens (D.C.B., E.N.F, E.L
.S.). The results show the interest of the proposed modelling, which a
llows a complete simulation of delamination using of relatively little
experimental data.