ANALYSIS OF SINGULAR ELECTROMECHANICAL FIELDS AT THE INTERFACES OF BIMORPH WITH A “CRACKED ELEMENT”

A full numerical procedure is proposed in order to compute the singular electromechanical field at the interfaces of bimorph. The whole procedure consists of two steps: (1) an ad hoc one-dimensional finite element formulation, which is developed by Wang & Sze, is employed to determine the eigensolution of the singular electromechanical field; (2) a hybrid crack element is constructed to determine the strength of the singular electromechanical field. The independent assumed stress and electrical displacement fields are extracted from the eigensolution obtained from previous ad hoc one-dimensional finite element formulation. The reliability and efficacy of the proposed procedure are verified through a numerical example of a central crack in a homogeneous piezoelectric panel. The proposed procedure is used to study the singular electromechanical fields at the interfaces of bimorph.