The Penny-Shaped Interface Crack With Heat Flow, Part 2: Imperfect Contact

The penny-shaped crack with heat flux is investigated for the case in which the heat flux is into the material with the lower distortivity. A harmonic potential function representation is used to reduce the problem to a boundary value problem which is solved by an integral equation method. If a sufficiently high tensile traction is applied, a solution is obtained involving a central circle of separation and surrounding annuli of imperfect and perfect thermal contact. For lower tractions, or higher heat fluxes, the crack closes completely and a closed-form solution is obtained in which the division of the crack face into imperfect and perfect contact regions is unaffected by further changes in heat flux or traction. Multiple solutions are obtained in an intermediate range.