Two-dimensional contact on a piezoelectric half-space

Abstract

Due to their intrinsic electro-mechanical coupling effect, piezoelectric materials have been widely used in industry. In the present paper, stress and electrical field distributions in a piezoelectric half-plane under contact load at the surface are considered. Since a piezoelectric material is intrinsically anisotropic, stress analysis has been impeded by the complexity raised by too many material constants. Hereby, Stroh's formalism is applied in the present study to overcome this difficulty. The solution for a concentrated force and charge acting on the boundary of the half-space, the Green function, is obtained in a neat form. The non-slip and slip indentor contacts on the piezoelectric half-space are also formulated.