Thermoelastic problem of curvilinear cracks in bonded dissimilar materials

Abstract

The two-dimensional problem of curvilinear cracks lying along the interface between dissimilar materials under remote heat flux is considered. Based on the Hilbert formulation and a special technique of analytical continuation, closed form solutions for the stress functions in both the inclusion and the surrounding matrix have been obtained in this study. It is shown that singularities of the thermal stresses possess the same tri-log character as those obtained for isothermal problems which would not be affected by the discontinuous jumps of the thermal properties across the interface. For illustrating the use of the present approach, detailed results are given for a single circular-arc crack in bi-material plate under uniform remote heat flux. Both the stress functions and stress intensity factors are expressed in an explicit form and the latter are verified by comparison with the existing ones. Numerical examples for commonly used fiber-reinforced composites such as boron/epoxy, carbon/epoxy and glass/epoxy systems associated with an interface circular-arc crack are examined and detailed results are provided. The validity of the fully open crack assumption is also discussed.