An efficient computational strategy of cycle-jumps dedicated to fatigue of composite structures

•Method reducing the simulation time of structures subjected to fatigue loadings.•Method designed for kinetic models, enabling a non-linear extrapolation of variables.•The accuracy and performance of the cycle-jump procedure is assessed. A method to accelerate numerical simulations of composite structures subjected to complex fatigue loading is investigated. A kinetic (rate) damage model predicts the damage evolution of composites during fatigue loadings, even for spectral loadings. A non-linear cycle-jump approach designed specifically for rate damage models is proposed, it allows to reduce drastically the computational time of fatigue Finite Element simulations. The simulations using the proposed cycle-jump method are compared to reference calculations where all cycles are conducted and also benchmarked against a classical cycle-jump method. This approach accounts for the skipped cycles, even under multiaxial loadings, and leads to large computational cost reductions.