Crack kinking in piezoelectric materials

Abstract

A solution is presented for a class of two-dimensional electroelastic branched crack problems. Explicit Green's function for an interface crack subject to an edge dislocation is developed using the extended Stroh formulation allowing the branched crack problem to be expressed in terms of coupled singular integral equations. The integral equations are obtained by the method that models a kink as a continuous distribution of edge dislocations, and the dislocation density function is defined on the line of the branch crack only. Competition between crack extension along the interface and kinking into the substrate is investigated using the integral equations and the maximum energy release rate criterion. Numerical results are presented to show the effect of electric field on the path of crack extension.