THERMAL INTERFACE CRACK PROBLEMS IN DISSIMILAR ANISOTROPIC MEDIA

The fundamental nature of an interface crack between dissimilar anisotropic media under the uniform heat flux is studied. Based on the Hilbert problem formulation and a special technique of analytical continuation, a simple and compact version of general solutions for the thermal field are given. The temperature gradients or heat fluxes are found to possess the characteristic inverse square-root singularity in terms of the radial distance from the crack tip. Due to this singular behavior, the heat flux intensity factor is then introduced to quantify the thermal energy cumulated in the neighborhood of the crack tip. Some numerical examples are given for the application of the final results to the intensity factor of heat flux as well as the full field solutions of temperature. It is very interesting to see that the solutions associated with the dissimilar media can be easily obtained from the corresponding problem associated with the homogeneous media by a simple substitution of their own material properties. In general, the system possesses the symmetric properties of the thermal conductivity coefficients which can make the heat flux intensity factor smaller. Consequently, the thermal energy intensification is diminished.