An analysis of the delamination of an environmental protection coating under cyclic heat loads

A computational analysis of a coated high temperature composite material under cyclic heat flux loading is conducted. The material system considered is a carbon–carbon (CC) composite laminate with a SiC environmental protection coating. Interface crack growth between the CC laminate and the SiC coating as well as the concurrent changes in the effective conductivity of the material system are modeled by the use of an irreversible thermo-mechanical cohesive zone model. In this model, the degradation of the cohesive strength due to cyclic loading is accounted for through a damage variable for which an evolution equation is given in terms of cohesive zone tractions and displacement jumps. Furthermore, interface failure progressively degrades the heat transfer across the interface. In the model the crack tip singularities for both stress analysis and heat transfer are removed. While the crack growth rates predicted by the simulation results can in principle be described by a Paris law approach, the strength of the proposed model is that the use of global loading parameters is in fact not necessary. Instead, material failure is described through local changes to the coupled mechanical and thermal fields.