SUMMARYThis paper investigates a computational strategy for studying the interactions between multiple through‐the‐width delaminations and global or local buckling in composite laminates taking into account possible contact between the delaminated surfaces. To achieve an accurate prediction of the quasi‐static response, a very refined discretization of the structure is required, leading to the resolution of very large and highly nonlinear numerical problems. In this paper, a nonlinear finite element formulation along with a parallel iterative scheme based on a multiscale domain decomposition is used for the computation of three‐dimensional mesoscale models. Previous works by the authors already dealt with the simulation of multiscale delamination assuming small perturbations. This paper presents the formulation used to include geometric nonlinearities into this existing multiscale framework and discusses the adaptations that need to be made to the iterative process to ensure the rapid convergence and the scalability of the method in the presence of buckling and delamination. These various adaptations are illustrated by simulations involving large numbers of DOFs. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.