Homogenization of fibrous piezoelectric composites with general imperfect interfaces under anti-plane mechanical and in-plane electrical loadings

•Four special piezoelectric interface models have been derived in a mathematically rigorous manner.•An elementary solution associated to general piezoelectric imperfect interface model has been provided.•The closed-form expressions for the overall moduli of the composite with general interface model have be established.

The present paper aims mainly to estimate the size-dependent effective properties of fibrous piezoelectric composites with general imperfect interfaces. The interface model used states that the displacement, traction, electric potential, and normal electric displacement all suffer jumps across an interface. In addition, it can degenerate into the well-known special ones by employing appropriate high-contrast interfacial parameters. To achieve our objective, an auxiliary inhomogeneity problem of a circular fiber embedded in an infinite cylindrical reference phase via general imperfect interface under anti-plane mechanical and in-plane electrical boundary conditions is analytically solved. This solution allows us to apply the well-known micromechanical schemes such as the dilute, Mori–Tanaka to obtain the closed-form expressions for the size-dependent overall properties of composites under consideration. Some numerical examples are provided for illustrating the features of the obtained general results.