Fracture of a piezoelectric fiber/elastic matrix composite

A piezoelectric fiber/elastic matrix system subjected to axially symmetric mechanical and electric loads is considered. The fiber contains a penny-shaped crack located at its center perpendicularly to the fiber. By using the Fourier and Hankel transforms, the problem is reduced to the solution of an integral equation. Numerical solutions for the crack tip fields are obtained for various crack sizes and different fiber volume fractions. Russian translation published in Mekhanika Kompozitnykh Materialov, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 301–318, May–June, 2006.