A Thermo-mechanical cohesive zone model

In this paper, a cohesive zone formulation that is suitable for the thermo-mechanical analysis of heterogeneous solids and structural systems with contacting/interacting components, is presented. Well established traction-opening relations are adopted and combined with micromechanically motivated heat flux-opening relations reflecting the evolving heat transfer through the interfaces. The finite element approach for a coupled analysis within an operator-split solution framework is presented and demonstrated with an example problem.