Computational simulations of thermal shock cracking by the virtual crack closure technique in a functionally graded plate

Thermal cracking in a ceramic/metal functionally graded plate under thermal shock loading, when the plate is cooled from high-temperature to ambient low one, is numerically analyzed with the commercial finite element software ABAQUS™. Continuous position-dependent functions were created for the mechanical and thermal coefficients of FGM and, then, implemented as user-defined material properties via respective subroutines of the ABAQUS code. In...