Numerical analysis for a crack in piezoelectric material under impact

In this paper, a numerical analysis of impact interfacial fracture for a piezoelectric bimaterial is provided. Starting from the basic equilibrium equation, a dynamic electro-mechanical FEM formulation is briefly presented. Then, the path-independent separated dynamic J integral is extended to piezoelectric bimaterials. Based on the relationship of the path-independent dynamic J integral and the stress and electric displacement intensity factors, the component separation method is used to calculate the stress and electric displacement intensity factors for piezoelectric bimaterials in this finite-element analysis. The response curves of the dynamic J integral, the stress and electric displacement intensity factors are obtained for both homogeneous material (PZT-4 and CdSe) and CdSe/PZT-4 bimaterial. The influences of the piezoelectricity and the electro-mechanical coupling factor on these responses are discussed. The effects of an applied electric field are also discussed.     

The axisymmetric torsional contact problem of a functionally graded piezoelectric coated half-space

In this article, we study the axisymmetric tor-sional contact problem of a half-space coated with func-tionally graded piezoelectric material (FGPM) and subjected to a rigid circular punch. It is found that, along the thick-ness direction, the electromechanical properties of FGPMs change exponentially. We apply the Hankel integral trans-form technique and reduce the problem to a singular integral equation, and then numerically determine the unknown con-tact stress and electric displacement at the contact surface. The results show that the surface contact stress, surface azimuthal displacement, surface electric displacement, and inner electromechanical field are obviously dependent on the gradient index of the FGPM coating. It is found that we can adjust the gradient index of the FGPM coating to modify the distributions of the electric displacement and contact stress.     

Electro-elastic interaction between a piezoelectric screw dislocation and circular interfacial rigid lines

The electro-elastic interaction between a piezoelectric screw dislocation located either outside or inside inhomogeneity and circular interfacial rigid lines under anti-plane mechanical and in-plane electrical loads in linear piezoelectric materials is dealt with in the framework of linear elastic theory. Using Riemann–Schwarz’s symmetry principle integrated with the analysis of singularity of complex functions, the general solution of this problem is presented in this paper. For a special example, the closed form solutions for electro-elastic fields in matrix and inhomogeneity regions are derived explicitly when interface containing single rigid line. Applying perturbation technique, perturbation stress and electric displacement fields are obtained. The image force acting on piezoelectric screw dislocation is calculated by using the generalized Peach–Koehler formula. As a result, numerical analysis and discussion show that soft inhomogeneity can repel screw dislocation in piezoelectric material due to their intrinsic electro-mechanical coupling behavior and the influence of interfacial rigid line upon the image force is profound. When the radian of circular rigid line reaches extensive magnitude, the presence of interfacial rigid line can change the interaction mechanism.     

Analysis of non-axisymmetric wave propagation in a homogeneous piezoelectric solid circular cylinder of transversely isotropic material

A study concerning the propagation of free non-axisymmetric waves in a homogeneous piezoelectric cylinder of transversely isotropic material with axial polarization is carried out on the basis of the linear theory of elasticity and linear electro-mechanical coupling. The solution of the three dimensional equations of motion and quasi-electrostatic equation is given in terms of seven mechanical and three electric potentials. The characteristic equations are obtained by the application of the mechanical and two types of electric boundary conditions at the surface of the piezoelectric cylinder. A novel method of displaying dispersion curves is described in the paper and the resulting dispersion curves are presented for propagating and evanescent waves for PZT-4 and PZT-7A piezoelectric ceramics for circumferential wave numbers m = 1, 2, and 3. It is observed that the dispersion curves are sensitive to the type of the imposed boundary conditions as well as to the measure of the electro-mechanical coupling of the material.     

On a semi-infinite crack penetrating a piezoelectric circular inhomogeneity with a viscous interface

We investigate a semi-infinite crack penetrating a piezoelectric circular inhomogeneity bonded to an infinite piezoelectric matrix through a linear viscous interface. The tip of the crack is at the center of the circular inhomogeneity. By means of the complex variable and conformal mapping methods, exact closed-form solutions in terms of elementary functions are derived for the following three loading cases: (i) nominal Mode-III stress and electric displacement intensity factors at infinity; (ii) a piezoelectric screw dislocation located in the unbounded matrix; and (iii) a piezoelectric screw dislocation located in the inhomogeneity. The time-dependent electroelastic field in the cracked composite system is obtained. Particularly the time-dependent stress and electric displacement intensity factors at the crack tip, jumps in the displacement and electric potential across the crack surfaces, displacement jump across the viscous interface, and image force acting on the piezoelectric screw dislocation are all derived. It is found that the value of the relaxation (or characteristic) time for this cracked composite system is just twice as that for the same fibrous composite system without crack. Finally, we extend the methods to the more general scenario where a semi-infinite wedge crack is within the inhomogeneity/matrix composite system with a viscous interface.     

Electromagnetoelastic behaviors of functionally graded piezoelectric

Analytical studies on electromagnetoelastic behaviors are presented for the functionally graded piezoelectric material (FGPM) solid cylinder and sphere placed in a uniform magnetic field and subjected to the external pressure and electric loading. When the mechanical, electric and magnetic properties of the material obey an identical power law in the radial direction, the exact displacements, stresses, electric potentials and perturbations of magnetic field vector in the FGPM solid cylinder and sphere are obtained by using the infinitesimal theory of electromagnetoelasticity. Numerical examples also show the significant influence of material inhomogeneity. It is interesting to note that selecting a specific value of inhomogeneity parameter can optimize the electromagnetoelastic responses, which will be of particular importance in modern engineering designs.     

A piezoelectric medium containing a cylindrical inhomogeneity: Role of electric capacitors and mechanical imperfections

Often, during fabrication processes of fiber–matrix composites, the pertinent interface may be made imperfectly bonded either deliberately or undesirably. The effect of electric capacitors and mechanical imperfections on the electro-mechanical fields associated with an anisotropic piezoelectric matrix containing a cylindrical inhomogeneity made of a different anisotropic piezoelectric material is of interest. In fact the interface imperfection condition presented in this paper is quite general, in the sense that any combination of mechanical and electrical imperfections may exist. The interface electrical imperfection is mimicked by the electric capacitors. The capacity of the capacitors is a measure of the electrical imperfection. The notion of complete electric barrier realizes when the capacity is equal to zero. For finite values of capacity, different electrical imperfections are modeled. When the capacity is infinitely large, perfect electrical interface reveals.     

Electromagnetoelastic behaviors of functionally graded piezoelectric solid cylinder and sphere

Analytical studies on electromagnetoelastic behaviors are presented for the functionally graded piezoelectric material (FGPM) solid cylinder and sphere placed in a uniform magnetic field and subjected to the external pressure and electric loading. When the mechanical, electric and magnetic properties of the material obey an identical power law in the radial direction, the exact displacements, stresses, electric potentials and perturbations of magnetic field vector in the FGPM solid cylinder and sphere are obtained by using the infinitesimal theory of electromagnetoelasticity. Numerical examples also show the significant influence of material inhomogeneity. It is interesting to note that selecting a specific value of inhomogeneity parameter β can optimize the electromagnetoelastic responses, which will be of particular importance in modern engineering designs. The project supported by China postdoctoral science foundation (20060390260) and Hunan Postdoctoral Scientific Program. The English text was polished by Yunming Chen.     

Propagation of Love waves in a functionally graded piezoelectric material (FGPM) layered composite system

In this theoretical study, we investigate the propagation of Love waves in a layered structure consisting of two different homogenous piezoelectric materials, an upper layer and a substrate. A functionally graded piezoelectric material (FGPM) buffer layer is in between the upper layer and the substrate. We employ the power series technique to solve the governing differential equations with variable coefficients. The influence of the gradient coefficients of FGPM and the layer thicknesses on the dispersion relations, the electro-mechanical coupling factor, and the stress distributions of Love waves in this structure are investigated. We demonstrate that the low gradient coefficient raises the significant variation of the phase velocity within a certain range of ratios of upper layer thickness to equivalent thickness. The electro-mechanical coupling factor can be increased when the equivalent thickness equals one or two wavelengths, and the discontinuity of the interlaminar stress can be eliminated by the FGPM buffer layer. The theoretical results set guidelines not only for the design of high-performance surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices using the FGPM buffer layer, but also for the measurement of material properties in such FGPM layered structures using Love waves.     

Piezoelectric composites with periodic multi-coated inhomogeneities

A new, robust homogenization scheme for determination of the effective properties of a periodic piezoelectric composite with general multi-coated inhomogeneities is developed. In this scheme the coating does not have to be thin, the shape and orientation of the inclusion and coatings do not have to be identical, their centers do not have to coincide, their properties do not have to remain uniform, and the microstructure can be with the 2D elliptic or the 3D ellipsoidal inclusions. The development starts from the local electromechanical equivalent inclusion principle through the introduction of the position-dependent equivalent eigenstrain and electric field. Then with a Fourier series expansion and a superposition procedure, the volume-averaged equivalent eigenstrain and electric field for each phase are obtained. The results in turn are used in an energy equivalent criterion to determine the effective properties of the composite. In this model the interphase interactions in each multi-coated particle and the long-range interactions between the periodically distributed particles are fully accounted for. To demonstrate its wide range of applicability, we applied it to examine the properties of several periodic composites: (i) piezoelectric PZT spherical particles in a polymer matrix, (ii) continuous glassy fibers with thin PZT coating in an epoxy matrix, (iii) spherical PZT particles coated by thick or functionally graded piezoelectric layer, (iv) spheroidal voids coated with a thick non-piezoelectric layer in a PZT matrix, and (v) spherical piezoelectric inhomogeneities with eccentric, non-uniform thickness coating. The calculated results reflect the complex nature of interplay between the properties of core, matrix, and coating, as well as whether the coating is uniform, functionally graded, or eccentric. The accuracy of this new scheme is checked against the double-inclusion and other micromechanics models, and good agreement is observed.     

Dynamic response of a cracked piezoelectric ceramic under arbitrary electro-mechanical impact

The dynamic response of a cracked piezoelectric ceramic under in-plane electric and anti-plane mechanical impact is investigated by the integral transform method. The electric and mechanical loads are assumed to be arbitrary functions of time. It is shown that the dynamic crack-tip stress and electric displacement fields still have a square-root singularity. Numerical computations for the dynamic stress intensity factor show that the electric load has a significant influence on the dynamic response of stress field. On the other hand, the dynamic response of the electric field is determined solely by the applied electric field. The electric field will promote or retard the propagation of the crack depending on the time elapsed since the application of the external electro-mechanical loads.     

On thermoelastic fields of a multi-phase inhomogeneity system with perfectly/imperfectly bonded interfaces

The stress fields of cylindrical and spherical multi-phase inhomogeneity systems with perfect or imperfect interfaces under uniform thermal and far-field mechanical loading conditions are investigated by use of the Boussinesq displacement potentials. The radius of the core inhomogeneity and the thickness of its surrounding coatings are arbitrary. The discontinuities in the tangential and normal components of the displacement at the imperfect interfaces are assumed to be proportional to the associated tractions. In this work, for the problems where the phases of the inhomogeneity system are homogeneous, the exact closed-form thermo-elastic solutions are presented. These solutions along with a systematic numerical methodology are utilized to solve various problems of physical importance, where the constituent phases of the inhomogeneity system may be made of a number of different functionally graded (FG) and homogeneous materials, and each interface may have a perfect or imperfect boundary condition, as desired. Also, the effect of the interfacial sliding and debonding on the stress field and elastic energy of an FG-coated inhomogeneity is examined.     

Exact static analysis of a rotating piezoelectric spherical shell

This paper gives an exact analysis of a rotating piezoelectric spherical shell with arbitrary thickness. At first, three displacement functions are introduced to simplify the basic equations of a spherically isotropic, piezoelectric medium. By expanding the displacement functions as well as the electric potential in terms of spherical harmonics, the basic equations of equilibrium are converted to an uncoupled Euler type, second order ordinary differential equation and a coupled system of three second order ordinary differential equations. A general solution to the homogeneous equations of equilibrium is then derived. The static analysis of a rotating spherical shell is then performed and numerical example is presented. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation, and the Japanese Committee of Culture, Education and Science.     

SCATTERING OF THE HARMONIC STRESS WAVE BY CRACKS IN FUNCTIONALLY GRADED PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIALS

The present paper considers the scattering of the time harmonic stress wave by a single crack and two collinear cracks in functionally graded piezoelectric material （FGPM）. It is assumed that the properties of the FGPM vary continuously as an exponential function. By using the Fourier transform and defining the jumps of displacements and electric potential components across the crack surface as the unknown functions, two pairs of dual integral equations are derived. To solve the dual integral equations, the jumps of the displacement and electric potential components across the crack surface are expanded in a series of Jacobi polynomials. Numerical examples are provided to show the influences of material properties on the dynamic stress and the electric displacement intensity factors.     

Electro-mechanical frictionless contact behavior of a functionally graded piezoelectric layered half-plane under a rigid punch

The frictionless contact problem of a functionally graded piezoelectric layered half-plane in-plane strain state under the action of a rigid flat or cylindrical punch is investigated in this paper. It is assumed that the punch is a perfect electrical conductor with a constant potential. The electro-elastic properties of the functionally graded piezoelectric materials (FGPMs) vary exponentially along the thickness direction. The problem is reduced to a pair of coupled Cauchy singular integral equations by using the Fourier integral transform technique and then is numerically solved to determine the contact pressure, surface electric charge distribution, normal stress and electric displacement fields. For a flat punch, the normal stress intensity factor and electric displacement intensity factor are also given to quantitatively characterize the singularity behavior at the punch ends. Numerical results show that both material property gradient of the FGPM layer and punch geometry have a significant influence on the contact performance of the FGPM layered half-plane.     

Crack energy density of a piezoelectric material under general electromechanical loading

Crack energy density is considered and used as a possible fracture parameter in piezoelectricity under arbitrary electromechanical remote loads. The closed-form solution of a crack in a piezoelectric infinite plate subjected to general static electromechanical loading is obtained through a method alternative to the more common Stroh’s formalism. This analytical method, which is based on the spectral theorem of linear algebra, involves a transformation of similarity induced by the fundamental matrix in order to express the equations governing the problem in terms of complex potentials. The application of the mechanical boundary condition of stress-free crack and of one of the three considered electric boundary conditions (impermeable, permeable or semipermeable) leads then to the formulation of a Hilbert problem whose solution yields the stress and displacement fields. The crack energy density factors for mixed mode are then calculated under different mechanical and electrical loadings, as well as under different electric boundary conditions. The non-singular terms of the stress expressions are retained as well. The definition of the minimum energy density fracture criterion, as proposed by Sih, is given, and the influence of load biaxiality and positive or negative applied electric field on the criterion results is analyzed. The prediction of the incipient branching angle as from the energy density approach is also compared to that arising from the maximum circumferential stress theory for a mixed mode loading condition. Numerical results and graphs are presented and discussed for a PZT-4 piezoelectric ceramic.     

Elastodynamic Green's functions for a laminated piezoelectric cylinder

Elastodynamic Green's functions for a piezoelectric structure represent the electro-mechanical response due to a steady-state point source as either a unit force or a unit charge. Herein, Green's functions for a laminated circular piezoelectric cylinder are constructed by means of the superposition of modal data from the spectral decomposition of the operator of the equations governing its dynamic behavior. These governing equations are based on a semi-analytical finite element formulation where the discretization occurs through the cylinder's thickness. Examples of a homogeneous PZT-4 cylinder and a two-layer cylinder composed of a PZT-4 material at crystal orientations of ±30° with the longitudinal axis are presented. Numerical implementation details for these two circular cylinders show the convergence and accuracy of these Green's functions.     

Wave characteristics in functionally graded piezoelectric hollow cylinders

Based on linear three-dimensional piezoelasticity, the Legendre orthogonal polynomial series expansion approach is used for determining the wave characteristics in hollow cylinders composed of the functionally graded piezoelectric materials (FGPM) with open circuit. The displacement and electric potential components, expanded in a series of Legendre polynomials, are introduced into the governing equations along with position-dependent material constants so that the solution of the wave equation is reduced to an eigenvalue problem. Dispersion curves for FGPM and the corresponding non-piezoelectric hollow cylinders are calculated to show the piezoelectric effect. The influence of the ratio of radius to thickness is discussed. Electric potential and displacement distributions are used to show the piezoelectric effect on the flexural torsional mode. The influence of the polarizing direction on the piezoelectric effect is illustrated. For the radial and axial polarization, the piezoelectric effect reacts mostly on the longitudinal mode. For circumferential polarization, the piezoelectric effect reacts mostly on the torsional mode. In the FGPM hollow cylinder, piezoelectricity can weaken the guided wave dispersion.     

Modified strip saturated models for two equal collinear cracks with coalesced zones in piezoelectric media

Two equal collinear cracks with coalesced interior electric saturation zones are analytically studied for two-dimensional(2D) arbitrary polarized semipermeable piezoelectric media based on a modified strip saturated model. The strip saturated model is modified here by varying the strip saturated constant electric displacement condition to the polynomially varying electric displacement conditions. Based on the linear, quadratic,and cubic electric displacement conditions on the inner and outer saturated zones, different modified strip saturated models are proposed and studied for two equal collinear cracks. With the Stroh formalism and the complex variable technique, these fracture problems are reduced into different types of non-homogeneous Riemann Hilbert problems in unknown generalized complex potential functions. These mathematical problems are then solved with the Riemann-Hilbert approach to obtain the stress and electric displacement components at any point of the domain. The explicit expressions for the outer saturated zone length, the crack opening potential(COP), the crack opening displacement(COD), and the local intensity factors(LIFs) are derived. A numerical study is presented for the modified strip saturated model in 2D arbitrary polarized semipermeable PZT-4 material. The obtained results are compared with those of the strip saturated model, and the effects of the polynomially varying saturation condition on the saturated zones and the applied electrical loadings are presented.     

Effects of electric field on crack growth for a penny-shaped dielectric crack in a piezoelectric layer

The assumptions of impermeable and permeable cracks give rise to significant errors in determining electro-elastic behavior of a cracked piezoelectric material. The former simply imposes that the permittivity or electric displacement of the crack interior vanishes, and the latter neglects also the effects of the dielectric of an opening crack interior. Considering the presence of the dielectric of an opening crack interior and the permeability of the crack surfaces for electric field, this paper analyzes electro-elastic behavior induced by a penny-shaped dielectric crack in a piezoelectric ceramic layer. In the cases of prescribed displacement or prescribed stress at the layer surfaces, the Hankel transform technique is employed to reduce the problem to Fredholm integral equations with a parameter dependent nonlinearly on the unknown functions. For an infinite piezoelectric space, a closed-form solution can be derived explicitly, while for a piezoelectric layer, an iterative technique is suggested to solve the resulting nonlinear equations. Field intensity factors are obtained in terms of the solution of the equations. Numerical results of the crack opening displacement intensity factors are presented for a cracked PZT-5H layer and the effect of applied electric field on crack growth are examined for both cases. The results indicate that the fracture toughness of a piezoelectric ceramic is affected by the direction of applied electric fields, dependent on the elastic boundary conditions.