CONTACT ZONE MODELS FOR AN INTERFACE CRACK IN A THERMOMECHANICALLY LOADED ANISOTROPIC BIMATERIAL

Abstract

An interface crack between two anisotropic semi-infinite spaces under the action of remote mixed-mode mechanical loading and a temperature flux is considered. Assuming that all fields are independent of the x 3 -coordinate co-directed with the crack front, the stresses and the temperature flux as well as the jumps of the displacements and the temperature at the interface are presented via a set of holomorphic functions in the whole (x 1 , x 2 )-plane with a cut along the crack area. By means of this representation a solution for an open crack model can be given in an analytical form, and further an inhomogeneous combined Dirichlet-Riemann boundary value problem could be formulated for a crack with an artificial contact zone. An exact analytical solution of this problem has been found, and the stress intensity factors are presented for different contact zone lengths with a special success in the case of a small length of the contact zone. Furthermore, it is shown that the obtained solution can be used for the numerical solution of interface crack problems for finite-sized bimaterials. Real contact zone lengths and the associated stress intensity factors are found from the obtained solution; in addition, their dependencies on the intensity of the temperature flux and the mechanical load mixity are demonstrated.