A BEM analysis for thermomechanical closure of interfacial cracks incorporating friction and thermal resistance

In this paper a sub-regional boundary element formulation is proposed for the treatment of general two-dimensional thermoelastic contact problems considering friction and thermal resistance along the contacting surfaces. These problems are solved by an incremental-iterative scheme since the extent and the status of the contact zone are not known in advance. The assumption of imperfect and pressure-dependent thermal contact increases the degree of non-linearity and couples the temperature and stress fields. Thus, both thermal and mechanical boundary integral equations are treated incrementally while iterative procedures are introduced to ensure equilibrium of mechanical and thermal contact conditions at each step of the process. The present work is focused on fracture problems of partially closed cracks situated on the interface of dissimilar isotropic solids under combined tensile loading and uniform transverse heat flow. Thermal stress intensity factors are evaluated through the use of quarter point elements. Numerical results are compared with solutions available in the literature, where possible. The good accuracy of the method is demonstrated.