A piezoelectric screw dislocation interacting with a nonuniformly coated circular inclusion

This paper investigated the interaction of a piezoelectric screw dislocation with a nonuniformly coated circular inclusion in an unbounded piezoelectric matrix subjected to remote antiplane shear and electric fields. In addition to having a discontinuous displacement and a discontinuous electric potential across the slip plane, the dislocation is subjected to a line force and a line charge at the core. The alternating technique in conjunction with the method of analytical continuation is applied to derive the general solutions in an explicit series form. This approach has a clear advantage in deriving the solution to the heterogeneous problem in terms of the solution for the corresponding homogeneous problem. The presented series solutions have rapid convergence which is guaranteed numerically. The image force acting on the piezoelectric screw dislocation is calculated by using the generalized Peach–Koehler formula. The numerical results show that the varying thickness of the interphase layer will exert a significant influence on the shear stress and electric field within the circular inclusion, and on the direction and magnitude of the image force. This solution can be used as Green’s function for the analysis of the corresponding piezoelectric matrix cracking problem.