Electro-elastostatic analysis of multiple cracks in an infinitely long piezoelectric strip: A hypersingular integral approach

The problem of an arbitrary number of arbitrarily oriented straight cracks in an infinitely long piezoelectric strip is considered here. The cracks are acted by suitably prescribed internal tractions and are assumed to be either electrically impermeable or permeable. A Green's function which satisfies the conditions on the parallel edges of the strip is derived using a Fourier transform technique and applied to formulate the electroelastic crack problem in terms of a system of hypersingular integral equations. Once the hypersingular integral equations are solved, quantities of practical interest, such as the crack tip stress and electric displacement intensity factors, can be easily computed. Some specific cases of the problem are examined.