Fracture analysis of cracked thermopiezoelectric materials by BEM

The boundary element formulation for analysing cracked thermopiezoelectric materials due to thermal and electroelastic loads is reviewed in this paper. By way of Green's functions for piezoelectric solid with defects and variational principle, a boundary element model (BEM) for a 2-D thermopiezoelectric solid with various defects is discussed. The method is applicable to multiple crack problems in both finite and infinite solids. Finally a brief assessment of the boundary element formulation is made by considering some numerical examples for stress and electric displacement (SED) intensity factors at a particular crack-tip in a crack system of piezoelectric materials.