Moving antiplane crack between two dissimilar piezoelectric media

A systematic study is performed for the antiplane problem of a moving inter facial crack between two dissimilar piezoelectric media subjected to piecew ise uniform loads at infinity, respectively. Different points from the rele vant analyses done by other authors lie in: (1) The present analysis is bas ed on the permeable crack model, i.e., the crack is considered as a tractio n-free, but permeable slit and thus both the normal component of the electr ic displacement and the tangential component of the electric field are assu med to be continuous across the slit. (2) A complete set of solutions are p resented for three different crack speed regimes, i.e., subcritical speed r egime, transonic speed regime and supersonic speed regime. (3) The analysis is conducted by use of a set of newly established complex function formula s, rather than the traditional integral transform approach. As a result, ex act and explicit solutions are obtained both in the media and inside the cr ack. It is shown from these results that near the crack tips, all the varia bles of field may exhibit the square-root singularities, oscillatory nature or non-singularities, which are dependent on the crack speed. However, all these singularities are independent of the applied electric load at infini ty, which is different from those results based on the impermeable crack mo del. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.