Electron Backscatter Diffraction Crystal Morphology Analysis and Multiscale Simulation of Piezoelectric Materials

A computational approach based on electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) measurement was proposed to estimate the effects of crystal morphology on the overall response of polycrystalline piezoelectric ceramics. EBSD-measured crystal orientations of a polycrystalline piezoelectric ceramic, barium titanate, were applied to a multiscale finite element simulation based on asymptotic homogenization theory. First, the orientation dependence of material properties, such as elastic compliance constants, dielectric and piezoelectric strain constants, was discussed for a single-domain crystal of tetragonal perovskite structure. The computation indicated that piezoelectric strain constants are more sensitive to crystal orientation compared with other properties. Then the single-crystalline material properties were introduced into multidirectionally oriented grains in the polycrystalline microstructure, the multiscale finite element analysis between macrostructure and EBSD-measured microstructure was performed. In this paper emphasis was placed on the diminution of microstructure. The authors discussed about the adverse effect on each component of macrostructural homogenized material properties, which is useful for micromechanics approaches.