Design, fabrication and property investigation of cement/polymer based 1–3 connectivity piezo-damping composites

• Cement/polymer based piezo-damping composite was developed.
• Piezoelectric, electromechanical and damping properties were studied.
• There exist potential applications of this composite in noise and vibration control.

A novel piezo-damping composite was designed and fabricated by using cement/polymer as matrix, PZT ceramic as piezoelectric phase, and graphite as conductive component. The piezoelectric, electromechanical and damping properties of the composite were investigated. The results show that the piezo-damping composite has larger piezoelectric voltage constant (g33) and thickness electromechanical coupling coefficient (kt), and smaller mechanical quality factor (Qm) than the pure PZT ceramic. When the graphite percentage is 1 wt.%, the cement/polymer based 1–3 connectivity piezo-damping composite has a g33 value of 133 mV m N−1, kt value of 58%, and Qm value of 9.6. The damping property of the piezo-damping composite is also obviously larger than that of the epoxy resin, and the largest damping dissipation factor of the composite is 0.51 at a glass transition temperature of 70 °C when the graphite percentage is 1 wt.%.