Penny-shaped crack in transversely isotropic piezoelectric materials

Using a method of potential functions introduced successively to integrate the field equations of three-dimensional problems for transversely isotropic piezoelectric materials, we obtain the so-called general solution in which the displacement components and electric potential functions are represented by a singular function satisfying some special partial differential equations of 6th order. In order to analyse the mechanical-electric coupling behaviour of penny-shaped crack for above materials, another form of the general solution is obtained under cylindrical coordinate system by introducing three quasi-harmonic functions into the general equations obtained above. It is shown that both the two forms of the general solutions are complete. Furthermore, the mechanical-electric coupling behaviour of penny-shaped crack in transversely isotropic piezoelectric media is analysed under axisymmetric tensile loading case, and the crack-tip stress field and electric displacement field are obtained. The results show that the stress and the electric displacement components near the crack tip have (r ^−1/2) singularity. The project supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Shaanxi Province, China