Dynamic crack extension along the interface of materials that differ in their thermal properties: with and without thermal relaxation

Summary Moving surface stresses cause crack extension along the interface of perfectly bonded thermoelastic materials at a constant sub-critical speed. The materials differ only in their thermal properties, and are governed by coupled thermoelastic equations that admit as special cases Fourier heat conduction as well as thermal relaxation with one or two relaxation times. A dynamic steady state of plane strain is assumed. The exact transform solution for a propagating displacement and temperature discontinuity is used to find solutions to the interface crack valid away from the crack edge for low extension speeds and solutions valid at the crack edge for high speeds. Results show that Fourier heat conduction dominates the former case, but solution behavior in the latter is dependent upon the particular thermal model. Thermal mismatch is seen to by itself cause a solution behavior similar to that for bonded dissimilar isothermal elastic solids. In particular, the two-relaxation time solution exhibits both oscillatory and non-oscillatory terms, and the interface temperature at the crack edge is finite.