Nonaxisymmetric electroelastic vibrations of a hollow sphere made of functionally gradient piezoelectric material

The nonaxisymmetric problem of natural vibrations of a hollow sphere made of functionally gradient piezoelectric material is solved based on 3D electroelasticity. The properties of the material change continuously along a radial coordinate according to an exponential law. The external surface of the sphere is free of tractions and either insulated or short-circuited by electrodes. After separation of variables and representation of the components of the displacements and of the stress tensor in terms of spherical functions, the initially three-dimensional problem is reduced to a boundary-value problem for the eigenvalues expressed by ordinary differential equations. This problem is solved by a stable discrete-orthogonalization technique in combination with a step-by-step search method with respect to the radial coordinate. Moreover, a numerical investigation is performed based on the algorithm used for solving the problem. In particular, we investigate the influence of the geometric and electric parameters on the frequency spectrum at the nonaxisymmetry of natural vibrations of an inhomogeneous piezoceramic thick-walled sphere.