Abstract: Based on the previous researches the authors proposed the following design approach to damage tolerance and durability of composite aircraft structures. That is, (a)the main object for damage tolerance design is impact damage; (6) the basis of damage tolerance design is to choose barely visible impact damage(BVID) as the initial defect; (c)the main approach to satisfying the damage tolerance requirements is to limit the design allowables, and the determination of the design allowables is based on the impact damage failure curves; (d)generally speaking, the aircraft structures which are designed based on the residual strength consideration stated above might automatically satisfy the durability requirement and the damage no-growth design concept.

Key words: composite aircraft structures, impact damage, damage tolerance design, durability design, design allowables