An analytical model for predicting the effective properties of magneto-electro-elastic (MEE) composites

A simple analytical model based on equivalent layered approach is developed to evaluate the effective properties of magneto-electro-elastic (MEE) composites where fibers are active to electrical and magnetic domains. Although the fiber and matrix phases do not exhibit any magneto-electric coupling phenomena, the resulting MEE composite has an effective non-zero magneto-electric response. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the effects of variations in the characteristics behavior of the fiber phase on the overall magneto-electro-elastic behavior of multiferroic composite. Theoretical predictions show that the effective magneto-electric coupling constants are maximum when the piezoelectric and piezomagnetic fibers share equal volume fraction. The simulated results based on the proposed model is compared with the other models (Mori–Tanaka and finite element methods) from the literature for material coefficients [1]. The comparison shows that the model calculations are in reasonable agreement with other proposed models.