Application of Weilbull statistics to the failure of coatings

Weibull statistics are usually applied to the failure prediction of brittle materials, but the mathematical and physical basis of such procedures are not always understood. The use of the same type of description with coatings made of materials that are not brittle when tested in bulk poses further theoretical problems. It will be shown that, if it is possible to divide one system into independent constituting elements, a Weibull distribution will always be the asymptotic distribution of strength for those elements when its number tends to infinity and can be used to predict failure with an accuracy that increases with the system size. The applicability to two-dimensional coatings is also discussed. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.