Transient thermoelectroelastic response of a piezoelectric material strip with two parallel cracks in arbitrary positions

This work is concerned with the thermoelectromechanical fracture behavior of two parallel cracks in arbitrary positions of a piezoelectric material strip under thermal shock loading. The crack faces are supposed to be insulated thermally and electrically. By using both the Laplace transform and the Fourier transform, the thermal and electromechanical problems are reduced to two systems of singular integral equations. The singular integral equations are solved numerically, and a numerical method is then employed to obtain the time-dependent solutions by way of a Laplace inversion technique. The intensity factors versus time for various geometric parameters are calculated and presented in graphical forms. The temperature, stress and electric displacement distributions in a transient state are also included.