4. Conclusions
1. Load controlled fatigue delamination is accompanied by LSB and significantly depends on the specimen thickness resulting in crack deceleration and eventual specimen fracture at a critical ERR almost equal to the corresponding steady state ERR under monotonic delamination. 2. The identified bridging tractions suggest that the maximum bridging traction at the crack tip is independent of the three tested specimens with thicknesses of 2, 4 and 8 mm. However, fatigue delamination in thicker specimens is accompanied by a longer bridging zone, in which the bridging tractions decay with a lower rate. 3. The scaling relationships between the specimen thickness and the bridging parameters, derived previously in the case of monotonic delamination [16,17], can be effectively used to predict thickness effects on bridging parameters in fatigue. 4. The identified values of ERR at the crack tip and the corresponding crack growth rate data suggest a power relation independent of the specimen thickness and crack length.