Fracture toughness of multiferroic composite materials

Fracture toughness of unidirectional ferromagnetic fiber reinforced ferroelectric matrix composite was studied based on the energy approach in a view of large scale. A half space edge crack with crack face perpendicular to the external fields was considered. The energy release rate was derived explicitly considering the magnetoelectric coupling under combined mechanical, electric and magnetic loading. Because of the magnetoelectric coupling through the interface, the fracture toughness is highly dependent on the polarization properties of the ferroelectric and ferromagnetic portions besides the volume fraction and the elastic properties of each composite.