Open Access

ARTICLE

Dielectric Breakdown Model For An Electrically Impermeable Crack In A Piezoelectric Material

Tong-Yi Zhang¹

1 Department of Mechanical Engineering
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

Computers, Materials & Continua 2004, 1(1), 107-116. https://doi.org/10.3970/cmc.2004.001.107

Abstract

The present work presents a strip Dielectric Breakdown (DB) model for an electrically impermeable crack in a piezoelectric material. In the DB model, the dielectric breakdown region is assumed to be a strip along the crack's front line. Along the DB strip, the electric field strength is equal to the dielectric breakdown strength. The DB model is exactly in analogy with the mechanical Dugdale model. Two energy release rates emerge from the analysis. An applied energy release rate appears when evaluating J-integral along a contour surrounding both the dielectric breakdown strip and the crack tip, whereas a local energy release rate appears when evaluating J-integral along an infinitesimal contour surrounding only the crack tip. Under small yielding conditions, the local energy release rate, if used as a failure criterion, gives a linear relationship between the applied stress intensity factor and the applied electric intensity factor.

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