A Study of Crack-Face Boundary Conditions for Piezoelectric Strip Cut Along Two Equal Collinear Cracks

A problem of two equal, semi-permeable, collinear cracks, situated normal to the edges of an infinitely long piezoelectric strip is considered. Piezoelectric strip being prescribed out-of-plane shear stress and in-plane electric-displacement. The Fourier series and integral equation methods are adopted to obtain analytical solution of the problem. Closed-form analytic expressions are derived for various fracture parameters viz. crack-sliding displacement, crack opening potential drop, field intensity factors and energy release rate. An numerical case study is considered for poled PZT–5H, BaTiO3 and PZT–6B piezoelectric ceramics to study the effect of applied electro-mechanical loadings, crack-face boundary conditions as well as inter-crack distance on fracture parameters. The obtained results are presented graphically, discussed and concluded.