Homogenization of piezocomposites containing both 0-3 and 3-3 connectivities

For high volume fraction piezoelectric particle loaded materials, two connectivities can be differentiated: the 0-3 connectivity which corresponds to isolated ferroelectric particles in the polymer matrix and the 3-3 connectivity which corresponds to particles in contact. A new model based on a matrix method previously developed for pure 0-3 and 3-3 connectivities is implemented to calculate all the effective parameters of such a composite which possesses both 0-3 and 3-3 connectivities. For this, a proportion of 0-3 connectivity in the composite is introduced. The effective properties are studied as a function of this proportion. Comparisons with experimental results show that this model allows an evaluation of the proportion of each connectivity through the analysis of the electromechanical performances of composite samples.