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Abstract The understanding of dynamic damage and failure of thermo-oxidative aged 3D carbon fiber/epoxy braided composite is critical to its durability design. Here we aim at a fine description of damage and failure of aged composites under impact compression by means of experiment and finite element analysis (FEA). The composites and epoxy resins were aged in air at 110 °C, 130 °C and 150 °C for prescribed time, respectively. The failure processes were recorded with high-speed camera. We found that with the increase of ageing temperature, the interface damage becomes more serious and the epoxy resins tend to a rubbery behavior. For the composites aged at lower temperature (110 °C), the impact resistance degradation is mainly attributed to the degradation of epoxy resin. While interface degradation is found to be the dominant degradation mechanism when the composites aged at higher temperature (130 °C, 150 °C). FEA results showed that in the process of impact, the plastic deformation induced temperature and thermal stress of the aged composites decrease compared with the unaged composite. For the unaged composites and the composites aged at lower temperature, the damage of reins is the main factor that affects the energy absorption of fiber tows. The interface damage plays a more important role in the energy absorption of fiber tows when the composites aged at higher temperature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]