Analysis of a screw dislocation inside an elliptical inhomogeneity in piezoelectric solids

This paper formulates and examines the electro;elastic coupling effects resulting from the presence of a screw dislocation inside an elliptical piezoelectric inhomogeneity embedded in an infinite piezoelectric matrix. The general solution to this problem is obtained by conformal mapping and Laurent series expansion of the corresponding complex potentials. The appropriate expressions of the field potentials and the field components are given explicitly in both the inhomogeneity and the surrounding matrix using a perturbation technique. The internal energy and the force on the dislocation are computed and several specific examples are provided to illustrate the validity and versatility of the developed formulations. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.