Fracture analysis in plane piezoelectric media using hybrid finite element model

A two-dimensional electroelastic fracture analysis is performed on a plane piezoelectric material by the finite element model based on fundamental solution approximation. In the present element model, the fundamental solution of the piezoelectric problem is employed to construct the intra-element fields to make the final stiffness equation containing element boundary integrals only. Solving the stiffness equation can yield nodal displacement and electric potential, which are in turn used to evaluate the stress intensity factor and electric intensity factor by way of extrapolation techniques. Numerical results are provided to show the accuracy of the present method.