Three-dimensional thermal weight function method for the interface crack problems in bimaterial structures under a transient thermal loading

Different from previous two-dimensional thermal weight function (TWF) method, a three-dimensional (3D) TWF method is proposed for solving elliptical interface crack problems in bimaterial structures under a transient thermal loading. The present 3D TWF method based on the Betti's reciprocal theorem is a powerful tool for dealing with the transient thermal loading due to the stress intensity factors (SIFs) of whole transient process obtained through the static finite element computation. Several representative examples demonstrate that the 3D TWF method can be used to predict the SIFs of elliptical interface crack subjected to transient thermal loading with high accuracy. Moreover, numerical results indicate that the computing efficiency can be enhanced when dealing with transient problems, especially for large amount of time instants.