Effective multi-field properties of electro-magneto-thermoelastic composites estimated by finite element method approach

A finite element approach based on the micromechanics was performed to estimate the multi-field properties of electro-magneto-thermoelastic composites. The thermal field and the involved pyroelectric and pyromagnetic effect of the multi-phase composite materials were taken into account in the investigation and implemented in the finite element modeling. The multi-fields related to the electric field, magnetic field, deformation and temperature field, as well as their coupling effects of the smart composites under periodic boundary conditions were obtained numerically. Especially, by means of the homogenization approximation, the effective thermal expansion coefficients, pyroelectric coefficients, pyromagnetic coefficients and other elastic, electric, and magnetic properties for the piezoelectric material, piezomagnetic material and magnetoelectric material were calculated, respectively. Some results are compared to the theoretical predictions by the well-known Mori-Tanaka method to show good agreements.