Abstract: Studies show that the macroscopic failure of structure results from the microscopic damage within materials, such as cleavage and slip plane decohesion. Therefore, it is helpful to understand the deformation and failure process of materials by studying the damage evolution at micro-scale. Based on the crystal plasticity theory, the microscopic damage in material is studied by analyzing the stress and deformation of slip system, and the microscopic damage model is proposed to consider the resolved normal stress on crystal slip plane. This study provides a new approach for the analysis of cleavage fracture of crystalline materials. First, the gradient tensor of damage deformation is introduced in addition to the crystal elastic-plastic deformation configuration. The constitutive equation with damage energy dissipation is established from the deformation kinematics analysis, and the plastic flow equation and the damage evolution equation are derived. Second, the numerical method is established including the updating algorithm of stress and state variables and the derivation of Jacobian matrix. After that, the single crystal copper with 100 orientation is studied as an example. Through comparing the results obtained by finite element computation and by experimental test, the 11 material microscopic parameters are calibrated using the particle swarm optimization algorithm. Finally, the proposed microscopic damage model is applied to the simulation of RVE under uniaxial tension. The curve of stress versus strain considering the damage effect is obtained, and the development of plastic flow and damage evolution are analyzed. The results show that the proposed model is able to compute the damage accumulation of materials and reasonably reflect the microscopic damage mechanism of crystalline materials.