Size-dependent effective electroelastic moduli of piezoelectric nanocomposites with interface effect

The problem of nanocomposite materials under far-field antiplane mechanical load and inplane electric load is investigated. Based on the theory of Gurtin-Murdoch surface/interface model, an exact solution is obtained for the inhomogeneity/matrix/equivalent medium model, in terms of which a generalized self-consistent approach is proposed for predicting the effective electroelastic moduli of nanocomposites. A closed-form solution of the effective electroelastic moduli is presented. The numerical results reveal that the effective electroelastic moduli are size dependent when the size of the inhomogeneity is on the order of nanometer. With the increase in the size of the inhomogeneity, the present solution approaches to the classical results obtained in the classical theory.