Characterization of Spatially Variant Electromechanical Properties in a 3D Printed Architected Piezoceramic

ABSTRACT Advances in ceramic additive manufacturing have enabled fabrication of piezoelectric metamaterials in which architecture can be used as a design parameter to expand and independently tune the different anisotropic electromechanical coupling modes. A critical step toward rational design of architected piezoceramics is the determination of complete piezoelectric tensor matrices for the differently oriented elements. In principle, this can be accomplished if the magnitude and direction of local electric fields are known, and it is assumed that the various elements reach their full potential for poling. The former aspect, that is, the local electric fields, can be readily computed using advanced finite element simulation tools. However, direct measurements of microstructural changes within architected piezoceramics also reveal that the spatial distribution of local poling levels does not exactly correlate to the local electric field distributions and instead are modulated by various material‐specific parameters. This necessitates computing the spatial map of piezoelectric tensors based on direct knowledge of microstructural changes within the various elements. The current article expounds on a methodology for realizing the same by combining in situ x‐ray microdiffraction experiments with a micromechanical model. The methodology is demonstrated for a 3D printed structure of BaTiO ₃ piezoceramic with periodic octagonal pattern.