A generalized screw dislocation interacting with interfacial cracks along a circular inhomogeneity in magnetoelectroelastic solids

The interaction of a generalized screw dislocation with circular arc interfacial cracks under remote antiplane shear stresses, in-plane electric and magnetic loads in transversely isotropic magnetoelectroelastic solids is dealt with. By using the complex variable method, the general solutions to the problem are presented. The closed-form expressions of complex potentials in both the inhomogeneity and the matrix are derived for a single circular-arc interfacial crack. The intensity factors of stress, electric displacement and magnetic induction are provided explicitly. The image forces acting on the dislocation are also calculated by using the generalized Peach–Koehler formula. For the case of piezoelectric matrix and piezomagnetic inclusion, the shielding and anti-shielding effect of the dislocation upon the stress intensity factors is evaluated in detail. The results indicate that if the distance between the dislocation and the crack tip remains constant, the dislocation in the interface will have a largest shielding effect which retards the crack propagation. In addition, the influence of the interfacial crack geometry and materials magnetoelectroelastic mismatch upon the image force is discussed. Numerical computations show that the perturbation effect of the above parameters upon the image force is significant. The main result shows that a stable or unstable equilibrium point may be found when a screw dislocation approaches the surface of the crack from infinity which differs from the perfect bonded case under the same conditions. The present solutions contain a number of previously known results which can be shown to be special cases.