The effective properties of smart composites with linear coupling behaviors

The analytical expressions for effective thermal, mechanical, electrical, and magnetic moduli of biphasic smart composites with the linear coupling behavior are developed by employing Mori–Tanaka theory and Dunn model, combined with the equivalent inclusion method for an ellipsoidal inclusion embedded in a transversely isotropic medium. These expressions reflected directly the contributions of each phase and that of the coupling taken place between any combinations of thermal, mechanical, electric, and magnetic behavior and provide a physical insight into how a composites consisting of inclusions perform. For a fibrous reinforced smart composite, the explicit expressions for the sum and product properties are derived and are helpful in understanding the coupling behaviors. The effective properties and the coupling effects as a function of microstructure are discussed theoretically and numerically for piezocomposite and piezomagnetic composite. The results are compared with that of the rule of mixture.