Analysis of multiple axisymmetric annular cracks in a piezoelectric medium

An axisymmetric annular electric dislocation is defined. The solution of axisymmetric electric and Volterra climb and glide dislocations in an infinite transversely isotropic piezoelectric domain is obtained by means of Hankel transforms. The distributed dislocation technique is used to construct integral equations for a system of co-axial annular cracks with so-called permeable and impermeable electric boundary conditions on the crack faces where the domain is under axisymmetric electromechanical loading. These equations are solved numerically to obtain dislocation densities on the crack surfaces. The dislocation densities are employed to determine field intensity factors for a system of interacting annular and/or penny-shaped cracks.     

Compensation of stress intensity factors in hollow cylinders containing several cracks under torsion by electro-elastic coating

In this article, a formulation for a hollow cylinder reinforced with an electroelastic layer is investigated. The hollow cylinder and its electro-elastic coating are under the Saint-Venant torsional loading. First, the solution to the problem containing a Volterra-type screw dislocation is obtained by using the Fourier transform. The problem is then reduced to a set of Cauchy singular integral equations by the distributed dislocation method. Finally, several examples are presented to show the effect of the electro-elastic coating on the reduction of the stress intensity factors at the crack tips.     

An internal crack problem for an infinite elastic layer

The elastostatic plane problem of an infinite elastic layer with an internal crack is considered. The elastic layer is subjected to two different loadings, (a) the elastic layer is loaded by a symmetric transverse pair of compressive concentrated forces P/2, (b) it is loaded by a symmetric transverse pair of tensile concentrated forces P/2. The crack is opened by an uniform internal pressure p ₀ along its surface and located halfway between and parallel to the surfaces of the elastic layer. It is assumed that the effect of the gravity force is neglected. Using an appropriate integral transform technique, the mixed boundary value problem is reduced to a singular integral equation. The singular integral equation is solved numerically by making use of an appropriate Gauss–Chebyshev integration formula and the stress-intensity factors and the crack opening displacements are determined according to two different loading cases for various dimensionless quantities.     

An antisymmetric problem of a penny-shaped crack in a piezoelectric medium

Summary  An exact, three-dimensional analysis is developed for a penny-shaped crack in an infinite transversely isotropic piezoelectric medium. The crack is assumed to be parallel to the plane of isotropy, with its faces subjected to a couple of concentrated normal forces and a couple of point electric charges that are antisymmetric with respect to the crack plane. The fundamental solution of a concentrated force and a point charge acting on the surface of a piezoelectric half-space is employed to derive the integral equations for the general boundary value problem. For the above antisymmetric crack problem, complete expressions for the elastoelectric field are obtained. A numerical calculation is finally performed to show the piezoelectric effect in piezoelectric materials. It is noted here that the present analysis is an extension of Fabrikant's theory for elasticity. Received 30 August 1999; accepted for publication 1 March 2000     

Analytical solution of multiple moving cracks in functionally graded piezoelectric strip

The dynamic behaviors of several moving cracks in a functionally graded piezoelectric (FGP) strip subjected to anti-plane mechanical loading and in-plane electrical loading are investigated. For the first time, the distributed dislocation technique is used to construct the integral equations for FGP materials, in which the unknown variables are the dislocation densities. With the dislocation densities, the field intensity factors are determined. Moreover, the effects of the speed of the crack propagation on the field intensity factors are studied. Several examples are solved, and the numerical results for the stress intensity factor and the electric displacement intensity factor are presented graphically finally.     

An analytical and experimental stress analysis of a practical mode II fracture test specimen

A boundary-collocation method has been employed to determine the Mode II stress-intensity factors for a pair of through-the-thickness edge cracks in a finite isotropic plate. An elastostatic analysis has been carried out in terms of the complete Williams stress function employing both even and old components. The results of the numerical analysis were verified by a two-step procedure whereby the symmetric (Mode I) and antisymmetric (Mode II) portions of the solution were independently compared with existing solutions. Since no previous analytical solutions existed for the asymmetric loading of an edge-cracked plate, the complete solution was verified by comparison with a photoelastic analysis. A compact shear (CS) specimen of Hysol epoxy resin was loaded in a photoelastic experiment designed to study the isochromatic-fringe patterns resulting from the Mode II crack-tip stress distribution. The experiment verified that a pure mode II stress distribution existed in the neighborhood of the crack tips, and confirmed the accuracy of the boundary-collocation solution for the Mode II stress-intensity factors. Specimen center-line stress-distribution data were obtained photoelastically and employed to refine the boundary-collocation analysis. Agreement between the analytically and experimentally determined Mode II stress-intensity factors was excellent.     

Elliptical crack and punch problems solved by integral equation method for piezoelectric media

The problem of an elliptical crack embedded in an unbounded transversely isotropic piezoelectric media with the crack-plane parallel to the plane of isotropy of the media and subjected to remote normal mechanical as well as electric loading is considered first. The problem has been successfully reduced to a pair of coupled integral equations that are suitable for the application of an integral equation method developed earlier for three-dimensional problems of LEFM. Solution to the mechanical displacement and electric potentials are obtained for prescribed uniform loadings and expressions for corresponding intensity factors and crack opening displacement are deduced. The above method has further been applied to solve the problem of a rigid flat-ended elliptical punch indenting a transversely isotropic piezoelectric half-space surface with the plane of isotropy parallel to the surface. Solutions to mechanical stress and electric displacement are obtained for prescribed constant normal displacement and constant electric potential interior to the elliptical region and expression for the total force required to maintain a prescribed indentation is deduced.     

Displacement discontinuity method for modeling axisymmetric cracks in an elastic half-space

This paper describes a displacement discontinuity method for modeling axisymmetric cracks in an elastic half-space or full space. The formulation is based on hypersingular integral equations that relate displacement jumps and tractions along the crack. The integral kernels, which represent stress influence functions for ring dislocation dipoles, are derived from available axisymmetric dislocation solutions. The crack is discretized into constant-strength displacement discontinuity elements, where each element represents a slice of a cone. The influence integrals are evaluated using a combination of numerical integration and a recursive procedure that allows for explicit integration of hyper- and Cauchy singularities. The accuracy of the solution at the crack tip is ensured by adding corrective stresses across the tip element. The method is validated by a comparison with analytical and numerical reference solutions.     

Study into the Interaction of Cracks in an Elastic Half-Space under a Shock Load by Means of Boundary Integral Equations

The effect of a shock load on the interaction of circular cracks in an elastic half-space is studied. In the space of Fourier time transforms, the problem is reduced to a system of two-dimensional boundary integral equations in the form of the Helmholtz potential with unknown densities characterizing the discontinuities in the displacements of the opposite crack faces. Discrete analogs of those equations are constructed. As an example, two cracks are considered whose faces are under the action of shock tensile loads varying in time as the Heaviside function. The time dependences of the dynamic stress intensity factors are obtained. Their dependence on the relative position of the cracks in the half-space is analyzed.     

Scattering of elastic waves by a surface-breaking crack

Scattering of incident surface waves and incident body waves by a surface-breaking crack is investigated in a two-dimensional geometry. By decomposing the scattered fields into symmetric and antisymmetric fields with respect to the plane of the crack, two boundary value problems for a quarter-plane have been obtained. The formulation of each boundary-value problem has been reduced to a singular integral equation which has been solved numerically. For incident surface waves the back-scattered and forward-scattered surface waves have been plotted versus the dimensionless frequency. Curves are also presented for the scattered displacement fields in the interior of the body generated by incident body waves, both versus the angle of incidence and versus the dimensionless frequency.     

Surface displacements due to elastic wave scattering by buried planar and non-planar cracks

The scattering of time-harmonic plane longitudinal, shear, and Rayleigh waves by a crack in two dimensions embedded in a semi-infinite homogeneous isotropic elastic half-space has been studied in this paper. Two problems have been considered: a straight crack and a Y-shaped crack. A hybrid numerical technique combining a multipolar representation of the scattered field in the half-space with the finite element method has been used to obtain the far-field displacements as well as the stress-intensity factors for the crack tips. Results for vertical displacement on the free surface of the half-space are presented in this paper.     

Crack kinking in piezoelectric materials

A solution is presented for a class of two-dimensional electroelastic branched crack problems. Explicit Green's function for an interface crack subject to an edge dislocation is developed using the extended Stroh formulation allowing the branched crack problem to be expressed in terms of coupled singular integral equations. The integral equations are obtained by the method that models a kink as a continuous distribution of edge dislocations, and the dislocation density function is defined on the line of the branch crack only. Competition between crack extension along the interface and kinking into the substrate is investigated using the integral equations and the maximum energy release rate criterion. Numerical results are presented to show the effect of electric field on the path of crack extension. The work was supported by the Australian Research Council through a Queen Elizabeth II fellowship and by the Australian Academy of Science through the J.G. Russell Award.     

Dynamic stress intensity factors of multiple cracks in a functionally graded orthotropic half-plane

In the present paper dynamic stress intensity factor and strain energy density factor of multiple cracks in the functionally graded orthotropic half-plane under time-harmonic loading are investigated. By utilizing the Fourier transformation technique the stress fields are obtained for a functionally graded orthotropic half-plane containing a Volterra screw dislocation. The variations of the material properties are assumed to be exponential forms which the equilibrium has an analytical solution. The dislocation solution is utilized to formulate integral equation for the half-plane weakened by multiple smooth cracks under anti-plane deformation. The integral equations are of Cauchy singular type at the location of dislocation which are solved numerically to obtain the dislocation density on the faces of the cracks. The dislocation densities are employed to determined stress intensity factor and strain energy density factors (SEDFs) for multiple smooth cracks under anti-plane deformation. Numerical examples are provided to show the effects of material properties and the crack configuration on the dynamic stress intensity factors and SEDFs of the functionally graded orthotropic half-plane with multiple curved cracks.     

The stress intensity factors near the tips of two collinear cracks in composite under in-plane shear

In this paper, the stress-intensity factors for two collinear cracks in a composite bonded by an isotropic and an anisotropic half-plane were calculated. The cracks are paralell to the interface, and the crack surfaces are loaded by uniform shear stresses. By using Fourier transform, the mixed boundary value problem is reduced to a set of singular integral equations. For solving the integral equations, the crack surface displacements are expanded in triangular series and the unknown coefficients in the series are determined by the Schmidt method. The stress intensity factors for the cracks in the boron-fibre plastics and aluminium joined composite and in carbon-fibre reinforced plastics were calculated numerically.     

Stress-intensity factors for surface cracks in functionally graded materials under mode-I thermomechanical loading

This paper describes the development and application of a general domain integral method to obtain J-values along crack fronts in three-dimensional configurations of isotropic, functionally graded materials (FGMs). The present work considers mode-I, linear-elastic response of cracked specimens subjected to thermomechanical loading, although the domain integral formulation accommodates elastic–plastic behavior in FGMs. Finite element solutions and domain integral J-values for a two-dimensional edge crack show good agreement with available analytical solutions for both tension loading and temperature gradients. A displacement correlation technique provides pointwise stress-intensity values along semi-elliptical surface cracks in FGMs for comparison with values derived from the proposed domain integral. Numerical implementation and mesh refinement issues to maintain path independent J-values are explored. The paper concludes with a parametric study that provides a set of stress-intensity factors for semi-elliptical surface cracks covering a practical range of crack sizes, aspect ratios and material property gradations under tension, bending and spatially-varying temperature loads.     

Axisymmetric circumferential internal crack problem of a thick-walled cylinder with inner and outer claddings

The elastostatic axisymmetric problem for a long thick-walled cylinder containing an axisymmetric circumferential internal crack with two claddings is considered. The claddings having different elastic properties than the hollow cylinder are assumed to be bonded to inner and outer wall of the hollow cylinder. The problem is formulated in terms of a singular integral equation of a well known type, the derivative of the crack surface displacement being the density function, using the standard transform technique. By using appropriate quadrature formulas, the integral equation is reduced to a system of linear algebraic equations. This system is solved numerically and the related stress-intensity factors are calculated for the cases of hollow cylinder with two claddings bonded to inner and outer wall of the cylinder, a cladding bonded to inner wall of the cylinder, a cladding bonded to outer wall of the cylinder and no cladding under axial tensile load. The influence of the geometrical configuration, the claddings and internal crack length on the stress-intensity factors is shown graphically.     

An embedded crack in a functionally graded orthotropic coating bonded to a homogeneous substrate under a frictional Hertzian contact

In this paper, we consider the elasto-static problem of an embedded crack in a graded orthotropic coating bonded to a homogeneous substrate subject to statically applied normal and tangential surface loading. The crack direction is parallel to the free surface. The coating is graded in the thickness direction and is orthogonal to the crack direction. This coating is modelled as a non-homogeneous medium with an orthotropic stress–strain law. The equivalent crack surface stresses are first obtained and substituted in the plane elasticity equations. Using integral transforms, the governing equations are converted into singular integral equations which are solved numerically to yield the displacement field as well as the crack-tip stress intensity factors. This study presents a complete theoretical formulation for the problem in the static case. A numerical predictive capability for solving the singular integral equations and computing the crack-tip stress intensity factors is proposed. Since the loading is compressive, a previously developed crack-closure algorithm is applied to avoid interpenetration of the crack faces. The main objective of the paper is to investigate the effects of the material orthotropy and non-homogeneity of the graded coating on the crack-tip stress intensity factors, with and without using the crack-closure algorithm, for the purpose of gaining better understanding on the behavior and design of graded coatings.     

Some transient coupled thermoelastic crack problems

This paper is concerned with determining the elastodynamic response of a plane strain medium containing a central crack deformed by the action of suddenly applied thermal and/or mechanical disturbances when the assumptions of the general theory of coupled thermoelasticity are assumed. Integral transform solution is employed to reduce the governing equations into integral equations of Fredholm type. A numerical inversion technique is used to compute the dynamic stress-intensity factors when the faces of the crack are subjected to constant heat flux and/or mechanical loading. Attention is focused on the overshoot in the stress-intensity factor and its time interval for non-stationary temperature fields, and to what degree it is influenced by the mutual dependence of the temperature and displacement fields inherent in the coupled theory of thermoelasticity.     

Theoretical model of crack branching in magnetoelectric thermoelastic materials

Thermomagnetoelectroelastic crack branching of magnetoelectro thermoelastic materials is theoretically investigated based on Stroh formalism and continuous distribution of dislocation approach. The crack face boundary condition is assumed to be fully thermally, electrically and magnetically impermeable. Explicit Green’s functions for the interaction of a crack and a thermomagnetoelectroelastic dislocation (i.e., a thermal dislocation, a mechanical dislocation, an electric dipole and a magnetic dipole located at a same point) are presented. The problem is reduced to two sets of coupled singular integral equations with the thermal dislocation and magnetoelectroelastic dislocation densities along the branched crack line as the unknown variables. As a result, the formulations for the stress, electric displacement and magnetic induction intensity factors and energy release rate at the branched crack tip are expressed in terms of the dislocation density functions and the branch angle. Numerical results are presented to study the effect of applied thermal flux, electric field and magnetic field on the crack propagation path by using the maximum energy release rate criterion.     

T-stress evaluation for slightly curved crack using perturbation method

A general formulation for evaluating the T-stress at crack tips in a curved crack is introduced. In the formulation, a singular integral equation with the distribution of dislocation along the curve is suggested. For a slightly curved crack, a small parameter is generally assumed for the crack configuration. By using the assumption for the small parameter, the perturbation method is suggested and it reduces the singular integral equation into many successive singular integral equations. If the cracked plate has a remote loading and the curve configuration is a quadratic function, the mentioned successive singular integral equations can be solved in a closed form. Therefore, the solution for the T-stress in a closed form is obtained. The obtained results for T-stress are shown by figures. It is found that if the involved parameter is not too small, the influence of the curve configuration is significant. Comparison for T-stresses obtained from a quadratic-shaped curved crack and an arc crack is presented.