An interaction energy integral method for an interface crack in nonhomogeneous materials containing complex interfaces under thermal loading

In this study, an interface crack problem of a nonhomogeneous elastic plate subjected to thermal loading is investigated. An interaction energy integral method (IEIM) is derived for obtaining the mixed-mode thermal stress intensity factors (TSIFs) of the interface crack. Compared with the traditional J-integral method, the present IEIM's advantage is that domain-independence still stands for the thermal interface crack problems. Particularly, when the integral domain intersects other interfaces, the present IEIM can still be proved to be domain-independent. Thus, the present method can be used to deal with the thermal crack problems of nonhomogeneous materials with complex interfaces. Used in conjunction with the extended finite element method (XFEM), the domain-independence of the present IEIM is verified. The numerical results agree well with the analytical ones. Several representative examples of complex interface crack problems in nonhomogeneous materials are analyzed in this study. Numerical results show that the method is effective for the thermal interface crack of nonhomogeneous materials with complex interfaces.