Indentation of a transversely isotropic piezoelectric half-space by a rigid sphere

This paper exactly analyzes the problem of a rigid sphere indenting a transversely isotropic piezoelectric half-space. The potential theory method is employed and generalized to include the piezoelectric effect. By using the previous results of elasticity, an exact solution is derived. It is found that all the elastoelectric variables can be expressed in terms of elementary functions. The work was partly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 19872060).