Study on the deformation mechanics of hard brittle coatings on ductile substrates using in-situ tensile testing and cohesive zone FEM modeling

► Study of the mechanisms of the stress transfer from ductile substrate to brittle films. ► In-situ tensile tests of diamond/Ti and hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H)/steel systems. ► Failure of coating by normal cracking and delamination is discussed using cohesive zone FEM.