Abstract
In this paper, plane thermo-elastic solutions are presented for the problem of a crack in two bonded homogeneous orthotropic media with a graded interfacial zone. The graded interfacial zone is treated as a nonhomogeneous interlayer having spatially varying thermo-elastic moduli between dissimilar, homogeneous orthotropic half-planes, which is assumed to vary exponentially in the direction perpendicular to the crack surface. Using singular integral equation method, the mixed boundary value conditions with respect to the temperature field and those with respect to the stress field are reduced to a system of singular integral equations and solved numerically. Numerical results are obtained to show the influence of non-homogeneity parameters of the material thermo-elastic properties, the orthotropy parameters and the dimensionless thermal resistance on the temperature distribution and the thermal stress intensity factors.