A rate-dependent constitutive model of piezoelectric thermoelasticity and structural thermo-electromechanical responses analysis to multilayered laminated piezoelectric smart composites

Thermo-electromechanical coupling analysis at micro/nano-seconds appears to be particularly important, where strain and electric relaxation effects will increase significantly in such case. So far, although temperature-rate-dependent theory of piezoelectric thermoelasticity has been historically proposed, it may be no longer hold anymore as relaxation effects both in electrical and strain fields have not been fully considered yet. This work mainly contributes to constitutive modeling of a novel rate-dependent piezoelectric thermoelasticity by considering time-derivatives terms of the elastic strain, relative temperature, and electric intensity associated with related relaxation time parameters. Constitutive and field equations are strictly derived via extended thermodynamics. Newly developed theoretical model is applied to analyze structural thermo-electromechanical responses of multilayered laminated piezoelectric smart composites accounting for contact imperfection and material parameters via a semi-analytical integrated transformation technique. Dimensionless results reveal that the properly selecting thermal/stain/electric relaxation time parameter or considering non-idealized boundary conditions at interface of multilayered laminated piezoelectric smart composites will maximally enhance the electric energy harvesting, realize the displacement control, and improve the harmful stress isolation. (C) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.