Time-dependent effective properties and local physical fields of polymer-based piezoelectric composites/nanocomposites via extended local-exact homogenization theory

Abstract

In this paper, the micromechanics model (local-exact homogenization theory – LEHT) for composites is extended to the piezoelectric time domain to predict the time-dependent effective properties and local physical fields of polymer-based piezoelectric composites/nanocomposites with energetic surfaces using the electroelastic-viscoelectroelastic correspondence principle. The interface is modeled using a generalized Gurtin-Murdoch (G-M) model for piezoelectric nanocomposites, taking into account of discontinuities of both interface stresses and electrical displacement. The method introduces the boundary-value problem and the composite homogenization constitutive equations into the Laplace domain for solutions, and subsequently transforms the macroscopic and microscopic responses into the time domain by a numerical-stable Zakian method, which avoids step-by-step iteration of the viscoelectroelastic constitutive equations in an integral-containing form. The consistency between the proposed method and the extended Eshelby solution and Asymptotic Homogenization Method (AHM) in the literature validates the accuracy of the approach. Finally, different rheological models are used to analyze the effects of matrix’ viscoelastic properties, fiber/matrix volume ratio, temperature and interfacial parameters on the long-term effective performance and local responses of piezoelectric composites/nanocomposites. The results demonstrate that this method not only efficiently predicts the long-term properties of piezoelectric materials but also accurately recovering the local stress and electric displacement distributions in the representative unit cells (RUCs). In addition, the study of interfacial effects provides theoretical support for understanding and optimizing the practical properties of piezoelectric composites. These results contribute to their efficiency and stability in the field of sensors, actuators and energy harvesters.