Anti-plane shear crack in a functionally gradient piezoelectric material

The main objective of this paper is to study the singular nature of the crack-tip stress and electric displacement field in a functionally gradient piezoelectric medium having material coefficients with a discontinuous derivative. The problem is considered for the simplest possible loading and geometry, namely, the anti-plane shear stress and electric displacement in-plane of two bonded half spaces in which the crack is parallel to the interface. It is shown that the square-root singularity of the crack-tip stress field and electric displacement field is unaffected by the discontinuity in the derivative of the material coefficients. The problem is solved for the case of a finite crack and extensive results are given for the stress intensity factors, electric displacement intensity factors, and the energy release rate. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 10072041), the National Excellent Young Scholar Fund, of China (No. 10125209) and the Teaching and Research Award Program for Outstanding Young Teachers in Higher Education Institutions of MOE, P. R. C..