On stress singularity at the interface edge between piezoelectric thin film and elastic substrate

This paper deals with the modeling aspects of the stress singularity at the interface edges between piezoelectric thin film and elastic substrate. The electro-elastic problem of a transversely isotropic piezoelectric thin film attached to an elastic substrate is treated theoretically. Emphasis is placed on the investigation of the singularity in the stress field at the free edge of interface. The eigen-equation determining the order of the singularity is derived. Numerical results for two edge geometries are presented for PZT film/silicon substrate combinations. It is shown that the orders of the stress singularities range from 0.1 to 0.3 for the considered cases. Moreover, piezoelectric effects may alter the singularity order to some extent, but not significantly.