Literature review on cracks located at the interface of dissimilar materials (interface cracks) -- Set of cracks with contact zones located at the interface of two isotropic materials -- Set of cracks with contact zones located at the interface of two anisotropic materials -- Periodic set of cracks located at the interface of piezoelectric materials.

This book offers a comprehensive and timely review of the fracture behavior of bimaterial composites consisting of periodically connected components, i.e. of bimaterial composites possessing periodical cracks along the interface. It first presents an overview of the literature, and then analyzes the isotropic, anisotropic and piezoelectric/dielectric properties of bimaterial components, gradually increasing the difficulty of the solutions discussed up to the coupled electromechanical problems. While in the case of isotropic and anisotropic materials it covers the problems generated by an arbitrary set of cracks, for the piezoelectric materials it focuses on studying the influence of the electric permittivity of the crack's filler, using not only a simple, fully electrically permeable model, but also a physically realistic, semi-permeable model. Throughout the analyses, the effects of the contact of the crack faces are taken into account so as to exclude the physically unrealistic interpenetration of the composite components that are typical of the classical open model. Further, the book derives and examines the mechanical and electromechanical fields, stress and electric intensity factors in detail. Providing extensive information on the fracture processes taking place in composite materials, the book helps readers become familiar with mathematical methods of complex function theory for obtaining exact analytical solutions. .