Analysis of Piezoelectric Fracture under Combined Mechanical and Electrical Loading based on Meshless Method

Abstract

In this paper, the moving least-square (MLS) method, one of the most promising meshless methods, is modified to construct whole field meshless approximation for coupled electromechanical problems. Based on this method, the crack propagation behavior and the elasto-electric fields near a crack tip in a PZT-5H piezoelectric ceramic under mechanical, electrical and mechanical-electrical mixed loads are investigated. The numerical results show that for a negative applied electric field, the hoop stress will be maximum at a certain angle other than 00 when the ratio of the electric field to tensile stress is relatively high, which makes the crack turn away from its original growth path.