Crack propagation along the interface of piezoelectric bimaterial

This paper is concerned with the propagation of a crack along the interface of a piezoelectric bimaterial, which can travel at subsonic or intersonic speed. The inertial effects are taken into account while the static approxi mation is applied to the electric fields. The effect of piezoelectricity on the asymptotic crack-tip field is discussed for an interface crack propaga ting subsonically and intersonically. An alternative method is used to avoi d solving for the eigenvectors. This paper provides a unified method to ana lyze the crack-tip field of a crack propagating along a piezoelectric bimat erial interface, (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.