Dynamic crack propagation in piezoelectric materials .1. Electrode solution

An analysis is performed for the transient response of a semi-infinite, anti-plane crack propagating in a hexagonal piezoelectric medium. The mixed boundary value problem is solved by transform methods together with the Wiener-Hopf and Cagniard-de Hoop techniques. As a special case, a closed form solution is obtained for constant speed crack propagation under external anti-plane shear loading with the conducting electrode type of electric boundary condition imposed on the crack surface (a second type of boundary condition is considered in Part II of this work). In purely elastic, transversely isotropic elastic solids, there is no antiplane mode surface wave. However, for certain orientations of piezoelectric materials, a surface wave will occur-the Bleustein-Gulyaev wave. Since surface wave speeds strongly influence crack propagation, the nature of antiplane dynamic fracture in piezoelectric materials is fundamentally different from that in purely elastic solids, exhibiting many features only associated with the in-plane modes in the elastic case. For a general distribution of crack face tractions, the dynamic stress intensity factor and the dynamic electric displacement intensity factor are derived and discussed in detail for the electrode case. As for inplane elastodynamic fracture, the stress intensity factor and energy release rate go to zero as the crack propagation velocity approaches the surface wave speed. However, the electric displacement intensity does not vanish. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd