Boundary element method's treatment of interfacial thermal stresses between dissimilar anisotropic materials

One of the most crucial concerns in the use of bonded composites lies in the interfacial thermal stresses developed between dissimilar materials as a result of the mismatch of thermal expansion coefficients. Although the boundary element method (BEM) has been recognized as an efficient computational tool, especially for rapidly varying stresses near the free edge of bonded composites, the study of the interfacial thermal stresses between dissimilar anisotropic materials by BEM still remains unexplored. An intercoupled BEM approach is proposed to investigate the interfacial thermal stresses by transforming the volume integral caused by thermal loading into a series of boundaries ones. Three numerical examples are provided as illustrations of the veracity as well as the applicability of the proposed scheme.