Electromechanical response of multilayered piezoelectric BaTiO ₃ /PZT-7A composites with wavy architecture

Electromechanical laminated composites with piezoelectric phases are increasingly being explored as multifunctional materials providing energy conversion between electric and mechanical energies. The current work explores thus-far undocumented combined microstructural effects of amplitude-to-wavelength ratio, volume fraction, poling direction of piezoelectric phases on both the homogenized properties and localized stress/electric field distributions in multilayered configurations under fully coupled electro-mechanical loading. In particular, the Multiphysics Finite-Volume Direct Averaging Micromechanics (FVDAM) and its counterpart, an in-house micromechanical multiphysics finite-element model, are utilized to investigate the homogenized and localized responses of wavy multilayered piezoelectric BaTiO ³ /PZT-7A architectures. These two methods generate highly agreeable results. Moreover, we critically examine the convergence of the finite-volume and finite element-based approaches via the Average Stress Theorem and Average Electric Displacement Theorem. The comparison shows the finite volume-based approach possesses a better numerical convergence. This study illustrates the FVDAM’s ability toward the analysis and design of engineered multilayered piezoelectric materials with wavy architecture.