Determination of Mechanical and Electrical Damages of Piezoelectric Material with Periodically Distributed Microvoids

This paper emphasizes on determining the mechanical and electrical damages of piezoelectric ceramics with periodically distributed ellipsoidal or spherical microvoids. Based on the unit cell method, detailed three-dimensional finite element analyses are carried out to acquire the effective electromechanical properties of voided PZT-7A materials, and then the mechanical and electrical damages are determined through the relations between the damage variables and the effective properties in the continuum piezoelectric damage constitutive theory. The quantitative connections between the damages and microstructure parameters, including the microvoid volume fraction and the microvoid aspect ratio, are analyzed in detail. Some interesting conclusions are obtained.