1. Introduction

The high specific strength and stiffness of composite materials make them suitable for aerospace structures. However, their high sensitivity to damage, arising after impact with foreign objects or caused by manufacturing defects, makes designing with composites a challenging task. In recent years, the inability to predict the damage onset and its evolution in aerospace composite structures, has led to over-conservative designs, not fully realizing the promised economic benefits. Hence, a number of Research Projects have been started, in the last decade, aimed to investigate composites’ damage mechanisms and damage tolerant design approaches. The GARTEUR group (www.garteur.org) promoted the Research Project AG-32 “Damage growth in Composites” (2007-2012), with 14 partners from 6 European Countries, aimed for the development of numerical/experimental methodologies capable to account damage and its evolution in composite structures. The main results from AG-32 are presented in this book.