An exact and explicit treatment of an elliptic hole problem in thermopiezoelectric media

This paper presents an exact solution for the problem of an elliptic hole or a crack in a thermopiezoelectric solid. First, based on the extended version of Eshelby–Stroh’s formulation, the generalized 2D problems of an elliptical hole in a thermopiezoelectric medium subject to uniform heat flow and mechanical–electrical loads at infinity are studied according to exact boundary conditions at the rim of the hole. The complex potentials in the medium and the electric field inside the hole are obtained in closed form, respectively. Then, when the hole degenerates into a crack, the explicit solutions for the field intensity factors near the crack tip and the electric field inside the crack are presented. It is shown that the singularities of all the field are dependent on the material constants, the applied heat load and mechanical loads at infinity, but not on the applied electric loads. It is also found that the electric field inside the crack is linearly variable, which is different from the result based on the impermeable crack model