A problem of thermoelasticity for a set of interface cracks with contact zones between dissimilar anisotropic materials

Abstract

A thermoelastic problem for a set of interface cracks, which are assumed to be fully open, partially closed with frictionless perfect-conducted contact regions and fully closed, situated on the interface of two dissimilar arbitrary oriented orthotropic half-spaces or half-planes which are in a combined uniform tension-shear field and a heat flow is considered. The problem is reduced to the boundary value problem for an analytical function which is solved in a closed form. The closed-form expressions for the stresses, displacement jump derivatives on the interface and for the stress intensity factors (SIFs) are derived. For the determination of the contact zone lengths a set of transcendental equations is obtained. A crack with two contact zones at the crack tips is considered for the numerical illustration and the influence of the orientation of principle axes of the materials, their thermoelastic constants and the applied thermomechanical load on the contact zone lengths and SIFs is investigated.