Debonding of graded coatings under in-plane compression

Graded materials are multiphase composites with continuously varying thermophysical properties. The concept provides material scientists and engineers with an important tool to develop new materials tailored for some specific applications. One such application of this new class of materials is as top coats or interfacial regions in thermal barrier systems. A widely observed failure mode in these layered materials is known to be interfacial cracking that leads to spallation. In many cases it is the buckling instability of coating under mechanically or thermally induced compressive stresses that triggers spallation. Under in-plane loading since the linear elastic small deformation theory gives only a trivial solution, in this study the plane strain interface crack problem for a graded coating bonded to a homogeneous substrate is formulated by using a kinematically nonlinear continuum theory. Both the instability and the postbuckling problems are considered. The main objective of the study is the investigation of the influence of material nonhomogeneity, kinematic nonlinearity and plate approximation on the critical instability load and on such fracture mechanics parameters as strain energy release rate, stress intensity factors and crack opening displacements.