Delamination can be probably considered the most common failure mode of composite laminates. In it, the loss of adherence between the different layers of the composite leads to a reduction of the section strength and stiffness that can finish in a structural failure.

Delamination failure is simulated using a continuum mechanics formulation. The procedure proposed obtains the composite constitutive performance with the Serial/Parallel mixing theory, and a damage formulation to characterize the constitutive behaviour of matrix component in order to obtain the stress-strain performance of this material. With these two formulations, the delamination phenomenon is characterized naturally by the numerical simulation, being unnecessary the definition of special elements or computationally expensive techniques like the definition of contact elements or mesh separation.