One of the most important components of the early design process for layered
systems is gaining a knowledge of the behavior of materials under varied contact
situations. Functionally graded materials (FGMs) have grown in popularity in layered
systems as a result of their numerous benefits, such as permitting the reduction of
local stress concentrations and thermal stresses often experienced in traditional
composites. This paper suggests an analytical approach to solving the continuous and
discontinuous contact problems of a functionally graded (FG) layer subjected to a
distributed load. Elasticity theory and integral transform methods provide the
basis of the aforementioned analytical approach. The FG layer rests on a
half-plane that is homogeneous, and there is no adhesion or bonding at the
contact surface. For this problem, we assume an exponentially varying shear
modulus and mass density in the FG layer. In the solution, the body force of
the FG layer is considered. The problem is solved analytically by applying
boundary conditions for both continuous and discontinuous contact cases. The
presented results show the effects of load factor, amplitude of distributed load,
inhomogeneity parameters, and interface material property mismatch on
contact stress distributions, initial separation load (critical load), initial
separation distance, starting and end point of separation, and separation
interval.