Effect of mesoscopic out-of-plane defect on the fatigue behavior of a GFRP

•Influence of an out-of-plane defect and its direction in GFRP samples on the mechanical properties.•During static and fatigue tests, observation of the local strain with digital image correlation.•Transversal orientation of defect causes massive loss of mechanical properties in both tests.•Longitudinal orientation shows almost no influence in static but suffers a significant loss in fatigue (less than transversal though).•The massive loss of mechanical properties in fatigue is caused by the easier delamination induced by the presence of the defect (compared to no defect samples).