Two-Phase Potentials for the Treatment of an Elastic Inclusion in Plane Thermoelasticity

Abstract

A solution to the uncoupled two-dimensional steady-state heat conduction and thermoelastic problems of an elastic curvilinear inclusion embedded in an elastic matrix, with different thermomechanical properties, is provided. The proposed analysis describes the heat conduction problem in terms of one holomorphic complex potential and the thermoelastic problem in terms of two holomorphic potentials; known hereafter as two-phase potentials. The general results of the developed analysis are applied to specific examples and explicit forms of the solution are obtained. It is shown that a uniform heat flow at infinity induces a linear stress distribution within the elliptic inclusion.