Micromechanical modeling of ferroelasticity and ferroelectricity and finite-element results for nonlinear piezoelectric applications

Piezoelectricity in polycrystalline materials like PZT ceramics is a complex phenomenon of both linear and nonlinear electromechanical coupling based on the single crystal piezoeffect and on domain switching, respectively. The latter can be caused by mechanical and/or electrical loading and yields to changes of the polarization texture of the polycrystalline material. The ferroelastic and ferroelectric hystereses can be understood by means of a micromechanical model. In order to include the grain-to-grain interaction Finite-Element (FE) method is its own recommendation. The micromechanical model has been implemented into the FE code ANSYS©. Experimental and simulation results are compared for purely ferroelastic and ferroelectric behavior.