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In the present paper the damage of fiber-reinforced polymeric matrixlaminates is considered with the aim to examine their mechanical properties.The damage mode in the form of intralaminar cracks (“primary matrix cracking”) isdescribed in terms of second order, symmetrical damage tensor by Vakulenko andKachanov. It allows for considering the orientation of the defects, which is determined bythe orientation of the constituent layers. The crack discontinuity parameter is estimated inframe of the linear elastic fracture mechanics.To describe the changes of the mechanical properties of a body, namely longitudinal Youngmodulus and Poisson ratio, caused by the damage - the constitutive relations by Adkins,based on the theory of irreducible integrity basis and polynomial functions are employed.Theoretical results obtained due to above procedure are compared with the experimentalresults for carbon/epoxy laminates of cross and angle-ply stacking sequences.