Measurements and simulations of interface behavior in metal thin film peeling along ceramic substrate

Peeling experiments for aluminum thin film along the Al2O3 substrate are carried out, and the variations of external driving force (energy release rate) at the steady-state delamination of the thin film in the metal film/ceramic substrate system are measured. Additionally, theoretical modeling for the thin film delamination is also performed. Based on the bending model, three double-parameter criteria are used. Three double-parameter criteria include: (1) the interfacial fracture toughness and the separation strength, (2) the interfacial fracture toughness and the interfacial crack tip slope angle of thin film, and (3) the interfacial fracture toughness and the critical von Mises effective strain of thin film-at crack tip. Based on the three double-parameter criteria, the thin film nonlinear peeling problems are solved analytically for each case. The results show that the solutions of thin film nonlinear peeling based on the bending model are very sensitive to the model parameter selections. Through analyses and comparisons to different solutions, a connection between solutions based on the bending models and based on the two-dimensional elastic-plastic finite element analysis is obtained. The effective regions of each model can be specified through comparing the present experimental result with model solutions.