Collinear cracks in a layered half-plane with a graded nonhomogeneous interfacial zone - Part II: Thermal shock response

In Part I of the paper, the problem of collinear cracks in a layered half-plane with a graded nonhomogeneous interfacial zone was investigated under mechanical loading and the cracking behavior was addressed by evaluating the stress intensity factors as functions of various geometric and material parameters. In Part II, the solution framework is extended to the problem of thermal shock on the basis of uncoupled, quasi-static thermoelasticity. The interfacial zone, in this case, is assumed to have the graded thermoelastic properties. Using the principle of superposition, a system of singular integral equations is solved subjected to equivalent crack surface tractions obtained form the transient thermoelasticity solution for a uncracked medium. Main results presented are the transient thermal stress intensity factors of collinear cracks to illustrate the parametric effects of geometric and material combinations of the layered medium with the thermoelastically graded interfacial zone.