Fracture Behavior of a Brittle Thin Film on an Elastic Substrate under Residual Stress and Uniaxial Tensile Loading
The fracture behavior of a brittle thin film on an elastic substrate under residual stress and uniaxial tensile loading is investigated. It is assumed that the residual stress in the thin film is not large enough to cause the thin film to fracture. Using a mechanical model presented in this work, the analytical solutions for the distribution laws of the tensile stress developed in the thin film, the shear stress developed along the interface and the relationship between the crack density of the thin film and the applied strain of the substrate can be obtained. The results presented in this work can provide a new analytic solution to the interfacial shear stress for characterizing the interfacial shear strength of the thin film/substrate system when the uniaxial tensile test is adopted to evaluate the mechanical properties of the thin film/substrate system.