Characteristics of 1–3-type ferroelectric ceramic/auxetic polymer composites

This paper presents modelling and simulation results on 1–3 piezoactive composites comprising a range of ferroelectric ceramics, which are assumed to have variable properties and an auxetic polymer (i.e. a material with a negative Poisson ratio) that improves the hydrostatic piezoelectric response of the composite. Dependences of the effective piezoelectric coefficients and related parameters of the 1–3 composites on the degree of poling, mobility of the 90° domain walls within ceramic grains, on the volume fraction of the ceramic component and on the Poisson ratio of the polymer component have been calculated and analysed. The role of the piezoelectric anisotropy and domain-orientation processes in improving and optimising the effective parameters, piezoelectric activity and sensitivity of 1–3 ferroelectric ceramic/auxetic composites is discussed.