Two-dimensional Green's functions in anisotropic multiferroic bimaterials with a viscous interface

We derive, by virtue of the unified Stroh formalism, the extremely concise and elegant solutions for two-dimensional and (quasi-static) time-dependent Green's functions in anisotropic magnetoelectroelastic multiferroic bimaterials with a viscous interface subjected to an extended line force and an extended line dislocation located in the upper half-plane. It is found for the first time that, in the multiferroic bimaterial Green's functions, there are 25 static image singularities and 50 moving image singularities in the form of the extended line force and extended line dislocation in the upper or lower half-plane. It is further observed that, as time evolves, the moving image singularities, which originate from the locations of the static image singularities, will move further away from the viscous interface with explicit time-dependent locations. Moreover, explicit expression of the time-dependent image force on the extended line dislocation due to its interaction with the viscous interface is derived, which is also valid for mathematically degenerate materials. Several special cases are discussed in detail for the image force expression to illustrate the influence of the viscous interface on the mobility of the extended line dislocation, and various interesting features are observed. These Green's functions can not only be directly applied to the study of dislocation mobility in the novel multiferroic bimaterials, they can also be utilized as kernel functions in a boundary integral formulation to investigate more complicated boundary value problems where multiferroic materials/composites are involved. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.