Effective moduli of ellipsoidal particle reinforced piezoelectric composites with imperfect interfaces

The effective properties of piezoelectric composites with ellipsoidal particles embedded imperfectly in the matrix are investigated. The dilute approximation method, the Mori-Tanaka method, the self-consistent method, and the differential scheme are all modified to incorporate the bonding imperfection to predict the effective elastic, dielectric, and piezoelectric moduli of the composite. The corresponding formulae are rigorously derived with the help of the modified piezoelectric Eshelby tensor. Numerical examples are considered to illustrate the effect of imperfect interfaces on the effective properties of piezoelectric composites. It is found that good agreement with the existing experiments can be achieved by properly selecting the interface parameters. This clarifies the importance of the inclusion of imperfect interfaces in the modeling. The particular size-dependent characteristic due to the interface imperfection is also investigated numerically. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.