Penny-shaped crack in a piezoelectric cylinder under electro-mechanical loads

Summary The fracture behavior of a penny-shaped crack in a axisymmetrical piezoelectric ceramic cylinder of finite radius under mechanical and electrical loads is analyzed under electric continuous boundary conditions on the crack surface. The potential theory and Hankel transform are used to obtain a system of dual integral equations, which is then expressed as a Fredholm integral equation. Singular mechanical and electrical fields and field intensity factors of mode I are obtained. The numerical values of various field intensity factors for PZT-6B piezoelectric ceramics are graphically shown for a uniform load and a ring-shaped load, respectively. The effects of the radius of the cylinder on the field intensity factors are investigated.This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation Grant (KRF-2001-041-E00057).