Surface fracture of a semi-infinite piezoelectric medium under transient thermal loading (poling axis parallel to the edge of the medium)

Abstract In [Mech. Mater. 34 (2002) 135–144], surface fracture of a semi-infinite piezoelectric medium under transient thermal load was considered for the case of the poling axis perpendicular to the edge of the medium. Investigated in this paper is the thermal fracture for another important case. Namely, the poling direction is parallel to the edge of the medium. In this case, both stresses and electric displacements exist ahead of the crack tip. The transient temperature and the stress distributions in an uncracked medium are calculated. The stress and the electric displacement for an uncracked medium are used as the crack surface traction with opposite sign to formulate the mixed boundary value problem. Results for stress intensity factors are computed as a function of the normalized time and the crack size. The crack propagation behavior is also discussed.