Three-dimensional Green's functions for transversely isotropic thermoelastic bimaterials

Green's functions for transversely isotropic thermoelastic biomaterials are established in the paper. We first express the compact general solutions of transversely isotropic thermoelastic material in terms of harmonic functions and introduce six new harmonic functions. The three-dimensional Green's function having a concentrated heat source in steady state is completely solved using these new harmonic functions. The analytical results show some new phenomena of temperature and stress distributions at the interface. The temperature contours are normal to the interface for the isotropic material but not for the orthotropic one. The normal stress contours are parallel to the interface at the boundary in the isotropic region only and shear failure is most likely at the heat source due to the highly degenerated direction of shear stress contours. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.