The fracture behavior of glass/epoxy plain woven composite plates containing circular holes is experimentally investigated to examine the effects of hole size and specimen width on notched tensile strength. It is shown in this paper that the characteristic length according to the point stress criterion depends on the hole size and specimen width. For predicting the notched tensile strength, a modified failure criterion is developed. An excellent agreement is found between the experimental results and the analytical prediction of modified failure criterion. The notched strength and the characteristic length have an increase and decrease relations. When the unstable fracture occured, the critical crack length equivalent for the damage zone size at the edge of hole is about twice the characteristic length. The critical energy release rate G$_{c}$ is independent of hole size(0.03 .leq. 2R/W .leq. 0.5) under the same specimen width. However G$_{c}$ increases with an increase in specimen width which can be explained by stress relaxation due to the notch insensitivity.ity.