Electrothermal crack analysis in a finite conductive layer with temperature-dependent material properties

The method of Greenwood and Williamson is extended to obtain a solution to the coupled non-linear problem of steady-state electrical and thermal conduction across a crack in a conductive layer, for which the electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity are functions of temperature. The problem can be decomposed into the solution of a pair of non-linear algebraic equations involving boundary values and material properties. The new mixed-boundary value problem given from the thermal and electrical boundary conditions for the crack in the conductive layer is reduced in order to solve a singular integral equation of the first kind, the solution of which can be expressed in terms of the product of a series of the Chebyshev polynomials and their weight function. The non-existence of the solution for an infinite conductor in electrical and thermal conduction is shown. Numerical results are given showing the temperature field around the crack.