Electroelastic behavior modeling of piezoelectric composite materials containing spatially oriented reinforcements

In this work, a modeling of electroelastic composite materials is proposed. The extension of the heterogeneous inclusion problem of Eshelby for elastic to electroelastic behavior is formulated in terms of four interaction tensors related to Eshelby’s electroelastic tensors. Analytical formulations of interaction tensors are presented for ellipsoidal inclusions. These tensors are basically used to derive the self-consistent model, Mori–Tanaka and dilute approaches. Numerical solutions are based on numerical computations of these tensors for various types of inclusions. Using the obtained results, effective electroelastic moduli of piezoelectric multiphase composites are investigated by an iterative procedure in the context of self-consistent scheme. Generalised Mori–Tanaka’s model and dilute approach are re-formulated and the three models are deeply analysed. Concentration tensors corresponding to each model are presented and relationships of effective coefficients are given. Numerical results of effective electroelastic moduli are presented for various types of piezoelectric inclusions and for various orientations and compared to existing experimental and theoretical ones.