The influence of Maxwell stresses on the fracture mechanics of piezoelectric materials

• The Maxwell stress effect at the crack faces and the space at infinity is studied.
• The electrically semi-permeable crack faces boundary condition is adopted.
• The field intensity factors at the crack tips are derived in closed-form.

The influence of Maxwell stresses on the generalized 2D fracture mechanics problem of piezoelectric materials under combined mechanical and electric loads at infinity is studied. The electrically semi-permeable crack boundary condition is adopted in this paper. Based on the Stroh’s formalism, explicit and closed-form solutions of electric displacement inside the crack, stress and electric intensity factors are obtained. Numerical results are also given to discuss the effects of Maxwell stresses on the stress and electric displacement intensity factors when the interior of the crack and the surrounding space at infinity are filled with different dielectric medium. It is found that the stress intensity factor increases rapidly with increasing value of the applied electric displacement load for the case of the dielectric constant of the surrounding at infinity is smaller than that inside the crack. The electric displacement intensity factor always increases as the applied electric loads or the applied mechanical loads increase.