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Computational Homogenization of Piezoelectric Materials using FE² Methods and Configurational Forces

  • Piezoelectric materials are electro-mechanically coupled materials. In these materials it is possible to produce an electric field by applying a mechanical load. This phenomenon is known as the piezoelectric effect. These materials also exhibit a mechanical deformation in response to an external electric loading, which is known as the inverse piezoelectric effect. By using these smart properties of piezoelectric materials, applications are possible in sensors and actuators. Ferroelectric or piezoelectric materials show switching behavior of the polarization in the material under an external loading. Due to this property, these materials are used to produce random access memory (RAM) for the non-volatile storage of data in computing devices. It is essential to understand the material responses of piezoelectric materials properly in order to use them in the engineering applications in innovative manners. Due to the growing interest in determining the material responses of smart material (e.g., piezoelectric material), computational methods are becoming increasingly important. Many engineering materials possess inhomogeneities on the micro level. These inhomogeneities in the materials cause some difficulties in the determination of the material responses computationally as well as experimentally. But on the other hand, sometimes these inhomogeneities help the materials to render some good physical properties, e.g., glass or carbon fiber reinforced composites are light weight, but show higher strength. Piezoelectric materials also exhibit intense inhomogeneities on the micro level. These inhomogeneities are originating from the presence of domains, domain walls, grains, grain boundaries, micro cracks, etc. in the material. In order to capture the effects of the underlying microstructures on the macro quantities, it is essential to homogenize material parameters and the physical responses. There are several approaches to perform the homogenization. A two-scale classical (first-order) homogenization of electro-mechanically coupled materials using a FE²-approach is discussed in this work. The main objective of this work is to investigate the influences of the underlying micro structures on the macro Eshelby stress tensor and on the macro configurational forces. The configurational forces are determined in certain defect situations. These defect situations include the crack tip of a sharp crack in the macro specimen. A literature review shows that the macro strain tensor is used to determine the micro boundary condition for the FE²-based homogenization in a small strain setting. This approach is capable to determine the consistent homogenized physical quantities (e.g., stress, strain) and the homogenized material quantities (e.g., stiffness tensor). But the application of these type of micro boundaries for the homogenization does not generate physically consistent macro Eshelby stress tensor or the macro configurational forces. Even in the absence of the micro volume configurational forces, this approach of the homogenization of piezoelectric materials produces unphysical volume configurational forces on the macro level. After a thorough investigation of the boundary conditions on the representative volume elements (RVEs), it is found that a displacement gradient driven micro boundary conditions remedy this issue. The use of the displacement gradient driven micro boundary conditions also satisfies the Hill-Mandel condition. The macro Eshelby stress tensor of a pure mechanical problem in a small deformation setting can be determined in two possible ways: by using the homogenized mechanical quantities (displacement gradient and stress tensor), or by homogenizing the Eshelby stress tensor on the micro level by volume averaging. The first approach does not satisfy the Hill-Mandel condition incorporating the Eshelby stress tensor in the energy term, on the other hand, the Hill-Mandel condition is satisfied in the second approach. In the case of homogenized Eshelby stress tensor determined from the homogenized physical quantities, the Hill-Mandel condition gives an additional energy term. A body in a small deformation setting is deformed according to the displacement gradient. If the homogenization is done using strain driven micro boundary conditions, the micro domain is deformed according to the macro strain, but the tiny vicinity around the corresponding Gauß point is deformed according to the macro displacement gradient. This implies that some restrictions are imposed at every Gauß point on the macro level. This situation helps the macro system to produce nonphysical volume configurational forces. A FE²-based computational homogenization technique is also considered for the homogenization of piezoelectric materials. In this technique a representative volume element, which comprises of the micro structural features in the material, is assigned to every Gauß point of the macro domain. The macro displacement gradient and the macro electric field, or the macro stress tensor and the macro electric displacement are passed to the RVEs at every macro Gauß point. After determining boundary conditions on the RVEs, the homogenization process is performed. The homogenized physical quantities and the homogenized material parameters are passed back to macro Gauß points. In this work numerical investigations are carried out for two distinct situations of the microstructures of the piezoelectric materials regarding the evolution on the micro level: a) homogenization by using stationary microstructures, and b) homogenization by using evolving microstructures. For the first case, the domain walls remain at fixed positions through out the simulations for the homogenization of piezoelectric materials. For a considerably large external loading, the real situation is different. But to understand the effects of the underlying microstructures on the macro configurational forces, to some extent it is sufficient to do the homogenization with fixed or stationary microstructures. The homogenization process is carried out for different microstructures and for different loading conditions. If the mechanical load is applied in the direction of the polarization, a smaller crack tip configurational force is observed in comparison to the configurational force determined for a mechanical loading perpendicular to the polarization. If the polarizations in the microstructures are parallel or perpendicular to the applied electric field and the applied displacement, configurational forces parallel to the crack ligament of the macro crack are observed only. In the case of inclined polarizations in the microstructures, configurational forces inclined to the crack ligament are obtained. The simulation results also reveal that an application of an external electric field to the material reduces the value of the nodal configurational forces at the crack tip. In the second case, the interfaces of the micro structures are allowed to move from their initial positions at every step of the applied incremental external loading. Thus, at every step of the application of the external loading, the microstructures are changed when the external loading is larger than the coercive field. The movement of the interfaces is realized through the nodal configurational forces on the micro level. At every step of the application of the external loading, the nodal configurational forces per unit length on the domain walls are determined in the post-processing of the FE-simulation on the micro domain. With the help of the domain wall kinetics, the new positions of the domain walls are determined. Numerical results show that the crack tip region is the most affected area in the macro domain. For that reason a very different distribution of the macro electric displacement is observed comparing the same produced by using fixed microstructures. Due to the movement of the domain walls, the energy is dissipated in the system. As a result, a smaller configurational force appears at the crack tip on the macro level in the case of the homogenization by using evolving microstructures. By using the homogenization technique involving the evolution of the microstructures, it is possible to produce the electric displacement vs. electric field hysteresis loop on the macro level. The shape of the hysteresis loop depends on the value of the rate of application of the external electric loading. A faster deployment of the external electric field widens the hysteresis loop.

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Author:Md Khalaquzzaman
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:386-kluedo-41743
ISBN:978-3-942695-10-7
Advisor:Ralf Müller, Bai-Xiang Xu
Document Type:Doctoral Thesis
Language of publication:English
Date of Publication (online):2015/09/16
Date of first Publication:2015/09/16
Publishing Institution:Technische Universität Kaiserslautern
Granting Institution:Technische Universität Kaiserslautern
Acceptance Date of the Thesis:2015/04/15
Date of the Publication (Server):2015/09/16
GND Keyword:Computational Homogenization; Computational Mechanics; Piezoelectric Materials; Configurational Forces
Page Number:133
Faculties / Organisational entities:Kaiserslautern - Fachbereich Maschinenbau und Verfahrenstechnik
DDC-Cassification:6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 620 Ingenieurwissenschaften und Maschinenbau
Licence (German):Standard gemäß KLUEDO-Leitlinien vom 30.07.2015