Interaction of a screw dislocation with an interfacial edge crack in a two-phase piezoelectric material

The interaction of a screw dislocation with an interfacial edge crack in a two-phase piezoelectric medium is investigated. Closed-form solutions of the elastic and electrical fields induced by the screw dislocation are derived using the conformal mapping method in conjunction with the image principle. Based on the electroelastic fields derived, the stress and electric displacement intensity factors, the image force acting on the dislocation are given explicitly. We find that the stress and electric displacement intensity factors depend on the effective electroelastic material constants. In the case where one of two phases is purely elastic, the stress intensity factor and image force are plotted to illustrate the influences of electromechanical coupling effect, the position of the dislocation and the material properties on the interaction mechanism.