THE EFFECT OF MICROSTRUCTURAL MORPHOLOGIES ON THE EFFECTIVE ELECTRO-MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF PIEZOELECTRIC PARTICLE COMPOSITES

This study introduces a micromechanical model that incorporates detailed microstructures for analyzing the effective electro-mechanical properties, such as piezoelectric and permittivity constants as well as elastic moduli, of piezoelectric particle reinforced composites. The studied composites consist of polarized spherical piezoelectric particles dispersed into a continuous and elastic polymeric matrix. A micromechanical model generated using three-dimensional (3D) continuum elements within a finite element (FE) framework. For each volume fraction (VF) of particles, realization with different particle sizes and arrangements were generated in order to represent microstructures of a particle composite. We examined the effects of microstructural morphologies, such as particle sizes and distributions, and particle volume fractions on the overall effective electro-mechanical properties of the active composites. The overall electro-mechanical properties determined from the present micromechanical model were compared to those generated using the Mori-Tanaka, selfconsistent, and simplified unit-cell micromechanical models.