On characterizing the viscoelastic electromechanical responses of functionally graded graphene-reinforced piezoelectric laminated composites: Temporal programming based on a semi-analytical higher-order framework

The electromechanical responses of single and multi-layered piezoelectric functionally graded graphene-reinforced composite (FG-GRC) plates are studied based on an accurate higher-order shear deformation theory (HSDT) involving quasi-3D sinusoidal plate theory and linear piezoelectricity. These FG-GRC plates are composed of randomly oriented graphene nanoplatelets (GPLs) reinforcing fillers and the piezoelectric PVDF matrix considering two different distribution patterns such as linear- and uniform- distribution (LD and UD) of GPLs across the thickness. The modified Halpin-Tsai (HT) and Rule of mixture (ROM) models are utilized to determine the effective material properties of FG-GRCs. The analytical model of FG-GRCs is extended further to analyze the time-dependent linear viscoelastic electromechanical behavior of the system based on Biot model of viscoelasticity in the framework of inverse Fourier algorithm. The viscoelastic electromechanical responses include the static deformation and electric responses of simply supported FG-GRC plates which are investigated by considering transverse mechanical and external electrical loading, as well as other critical parameters like aspect ratio and weight fraction of GPLs. The numerical results reveal that the electromechanical response of FG-GRC plates can be enriched due to the addition of a small weight fraction of GPLs. The coupled multiphysics-based computational framework proposed here for predicting the viscoelastic electromechanical behavior of laminated composites can be exploited for stimulating and developing a wide range of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and devices incorporating time-dependent programming features.