Research Summary: The Effect of Microstructure on the Macroscopic Response of Electroactive Systems

Abstract

A framework to model the effect of the microstructural features and crystallographic anisotropy on the macroscopic response of electractive ceramics is described. The model accounts for mechanical, electric and concentration fields, as well as couplings such as piezoelectricity and electromigration. The setup starts from single crystal properties and incorporates them into a numerical setup by applying on the finite element method. This was implemented by modifying the Object Oriented Finite Element Analysis for Materials Science software (OOF). The model is validated against analytic solutions.

This framework is applied to describe a) the effect of crystallographic texture and grain microstructure in ceramic ferroelectrics and b) the transport processes of charged species for rechargeable Li-ion batteries.