The design of aircraft structures made of composite materials is heavily influenced by damage tolerance requirements. The problem of predicting failure in notched laminates has been the subjected of numerous studies. In general, these investigations have focused on the response of laminates to in-plane tension, compression or shear. In spite of the fact that out-of-plane bending, twisting, or shear can be an important load situation, very little research has been devoted to this topic. The overall goal of this research is to develop analysis techniques that are useful for the design of composite aircraft structure subjected to general out-of-plane loading. For this project we will limit ourselves to the out-of-plane bending case and focus on some very basic experiments and modeling efforts involving simple structures (center-notched, unstiffened laminates) under pure bending. In partnership with the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company, we will determine the modes of failure of the laminates and evaluate the capability of some currently existing analysis techniques for predicting these failures. Accomplishing our objective will require both experimental and computational efforts.