Finite Element Implementation of a Thermodynamic Description of Piezoelectric Microstructures

A model and numerical framework is developed for piezoelectric materials. The model treats the piezoelectric and electrostrictive effects by incorporating orientation-dependent, single-crystal properties. The method is implemented in Object Oriented Fi-nite Element program, a public domain finite element code, so it can be applied to arbitrary two-dimensional microstructures with crystallographic anisotropy. The model is validated against analytic solutions. Consistency of the method for known cases permits application of the technique to more complicated two-dimensional systems. The piezoelectric and electrostrictive re-sponse is determined for a few simple device geometries and provides insight for design and convergence criteria. I