The elastostatic problem of a surface crack in a graded coating bonded to a
homogeneous substrate under general loading conditions is considered. The coating is
graded along the thickness direction and modeled as a nonhomogeneous
medium with an isotropic stress-strain law. The problem is solved under
the assumption of plane strain or generalized plane stress conditions. The
crack surfaces are subjected to arbitrary loadings which give rise to mixed
fracture modes which can be uncoupled due to the fact that the crack axis is
parallel to the material gradient. Therefore, the opening and sliding mode
problems may be formulated separately. For each problem, the solution of
the composite medium may be determined by obtaining the solution of the
homogeneous substrate and that of the graded layer. The latter solution
may be expressed as the sum of two solutions, namely an infinite graded
medium with a crack and a graded strip without a crack. The resulting
mixed-boundary value problem is reduced to a set of two uncoupled singular
integral equations which are solved numerically using Jacobi polynomials. The
main objective of the paper is to study the effect of the layer thickness and
nonhomogeneity parameter on the crack tip mixed-mode stress intensity factors
for the purpose of gaining better understanding on the behavior of graded
coatings.
Laboratoire des Propriétés
Mechaniques et Thermodynamiques de Matériaux
UPR-CNRS 9001
Institut Galilée
Université Paris 13
99 avenue Jean-Baptiste Clément
93430 Villetaneuse
France