Interface cracks in piezoelectric materials

Due to their intrinsic electromechanical coupling behavior, piezoelectric materials are widely used in sensors, actuators and other modern technologies. It is well known that piezoelectric ceramics are very brittle and susceptible to fracture. In many cases, fracture occurs at interfaces as debonding and cracks. This leads to an undesired degradation of electrical and mechanical performance. Because of the practical and fundamental importance of the problem, interface cracks in piezoelectric materials have been actively studied in the last few decades. This review provides a comprehensive survey of recent works on cracks situated at the interface of two materials, at least one of which has piezoelectric or piezoelectromagnetic properties. Different electric boundary conditions along the crack faces are discussed. The oscillating and contact zone models for in-plane straight interface cracks between two dissimilar piezoelectric materials or between piezoelectric and non-piezoelectric ones are reviewed. Different peculiarities related to the investigation of interface cracks in piezoelectric materials for the anti-plane case, for functionally graded and thermopiezoelectric materials are presented. Papers related to magnetoelectroelastic bimaterials, to steady state motion of interface cracks in piezoelectric bimaterials and to circular arc-cracks at the interface of piezoelectric materials are reviewed, and various methods used to address these problems are discussed. The review concludes with an outlook on future research directions.