Effect of Maxwell stresses on the thermal crack tip field for piezoelectric materials

• Effect of Maxwell stresses at crack faces for piezoelectric materials is studied.
• Thermally and electrically semi-permeable crack faces boundary condition is used.
• Stress intensity factors at the crack tip are derived in closed-form.
• Cases of different dielectric medium inside the crack are considered.

Influence of Maxwell stresses acting upon crack faces on the fracture mechanics problem in piezoelectric materials subjected to thermal, mechanical and electric loads at infinity is investigated theoretically. The thermoelectric semi-permeable crack boundary condition is used. Explicit and closed-form solutions of thermal flux and electric displacement inside the crack, and stress and electric displacement intensity factors are derived based on the Stroh’s formalism and thermoelectroelastic Green’s function method. Numerical results are given to illustrate the effect of Maxwell stresses on the thermal stress intensity factor when the interior of the crack is filled with different dielectric medium.