Modeling of the Electromechanical Behavior of Barium Titanate Under Mechanical Stress and Comparison With Experimental Measurements

Barium titanate (BaTiO
₃₎
is increasingly studied to replace lead-based piezoelectric materials, such as those which belong to the lead zirconate titanate (PZT) family, due to lead toxicity. In many applications, such as Tonpilz transducers, piezoelectric materials undergo mechanical stress simulation of which is important to control and predict electroacoustic effects. Thus, this article deals with a fully tensorial model that allows to simulate the behaviors of electrical displacements and elastic strains under mechanical stress. Simulated curves are compared with experimental ones obtained for BaTiO
₃
samples. It can be verified that the hysteretic curves of strains are well predicted for unpoled samples as well as for poled ones. The order of values and global behavior of the theoretical electrical displacement are also verified, even if a less precise agreement is observed. The optimized values of the physical parameters, such as d
₃₃
, are discussed, and improvements both of the model and the optimization procedure are finally proposed in order to better predict the mechanical behavior of BaTiO
₃
.