INVESTIGATION ON THE EFFECTIVE ELECTROELASTIC PROPERTIES OF PIEZOELECTRIC COMPOSITES CONTAINING RING-SHAPED CROSS-SECTION PIEZOELECTRIC FIBERS

The effective electroelastic properties of the piezoelectric composites with periodically distributed piezoelectric fibers are studied. By applying periodical displacement and electric potential boundary conditions to the boundaries of the representative volume element (RVE) of the composites, the electroelastic fields in the RVE are obtained by finite element analysis. On the basis of the averaged electroelectic fields and the definition of effective electroelastic property of piezoelectric composites, the effective electroelastic coefficients of the composites with ring-shaped cross-section piezoelectric fibers are evaluated. By numerical examples, the differences in the effective electroelastic coefficients between composites with ring-shaped and those with circular cross-section piezoelectric fibers are demonstrated under the same piezoelectric material volume fraction, while the effects of mechanical property of non-piezoelectric filling materials inside the ring-shaped cross-section piezoelectric fibers on the effective piezoelectric coefficients are discussed. This research is expected to provide references for designing piezoelectric composites with high sensibility.