Steady-state cracking in brittle substrates beneath adherent films: revisited

This is a technical note aiming at the re-examination of the phenomenon of the steady-state cracking in the two-layer system. The method of Suo and Hutchinson, as introduced in their 1989 paper, is followed. Our solution is compared with the one appearing in that paper for the substrate-to-film thickness ratio ${\lambda }_0=10$. We obtain results at three ${\lambda }_0<10$ values. Combined with the results for ${\lambda }_0=10$, the new sets of values cover thickness ratios between 1 and 10, sufficient for determining crack initiation and propagation in almost every relevant problem. We present our results in tables (and figures), thus facilitating their implementation and use.