Electro-elastic interaction between a screw dislocation and an elliptical inhomogeneity in piezoelectric materials

article is concerned with the electro-elastic interaction between a dislocation and an elliptical piezoelectric inhomogeneity in an infinite piezoelectric matrix. The matrix is subjected to remote antiplane shear and inplane electric fields. The explicit expressions of the complex potentials are derived in both the inhomogeneity and the surrounding matrix using conformal mapping and the perturbation techniques. The results reveal that when the inhomogeneity reduces to a cavity, the electric field strength in both the cavity and the matrix is not affected by the dislocation. In addition, the results also show that the electric field strength is uniform in the cavity. In the case of a slit crack, the electric field strength in the matrix becomes uniform along the slit and in the matrix, while the stress and the electric displacements show the traditional square root singularity at the crack tip. 0 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd.