The disturbance of heat flow and thermal stresses in composites with partially bonded inclusions

A general solution to the thermoelastic and heat conduction problems for co mposite materials with curvilinear partially bonded inclusions is obtained. The solution of these problems is based on the complex potential method, c onformal mapping and analytic continuation techniques. The obtained general solution is applied to the special case of an elliptical inclusion with th e uniform heat flux applied to the matrix at infinity. As in the case of me chanical loadings, the crack-tip stress field possesses the square-root sin gularity with the logarithmic oscillation. in the special case of a line ri gid inclusion, the order of singularity changes as the crack tip approaches the end of the inclusion. The thermal stress intensity factor at the crack tip is determined and numerical results an obtained for the case of an ell iptical rigid inclusion. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved .