An analytical study on prediction of effective properties in porous and non-porous piezoelectric composites

Eshelby type micromechanics model with a newly developed piezoelectric Eshelby tensor is proposed for predicting the effective electroelastic properties of the piezoelectric composite. The model is applied for piezoelectric solids containing both porosities and metal inhomogeneities. The effective electroelastic moduli of the composites such as stiffness, piezoelectric constants, and dielectric constants are predicted by the present model, which are extensively compared with the existing experimental results from the literatures. The validity of Eshelby type model for predicting the effective properties of the composite is thoroughly examined. It can be concluded from this study that a new mechanism is needed to compute correctly the dielectric constants among the effective properties of the composites.