The history of fiber-reinforced polymer composite laminate fatigue

•Historical review of composites fatigue investigations.•Covers the last 75 years of fatigue investigations on composite materials.•Reviews the main approaches followed.•Describes the milestones in the field. Investigations of the fatigue performance of composite materials have accompanied their introduction in several engineering domains since the 1950s. An abundance of publications have emerged dealing with the experimental investigation of the fatigue performance of composites under different loading and environmental conditions, as well as the development of theories for the modeling of the fatigue behavior and/or prediction of the fatigue life of the materials systems under consideration. This work aims to briefly review and present the history of fiber-reinforced polymer composite laminate fatigue investigations, dividing the last 70 years into three periods. The early 1950–1975 period, when the “new” materials and their behavior under (simple) fatigue loading patterns were discovered. The mature, 1975–2000 period, when more loading and material parameters were investigated and the basic theoretical background was established. And finally, the later period, in the new millennium, when more detailed experimental campaigns were performed (assisted by developments in a multitude of engineering and scientific fields) and parameters that had previously been overlooked by researchers were taken into account.