Dislocation simulation of domain switching toughening in ferroelectric ceramics

C. Xie
a,
, Q.H. Fang
b
, Y.W. Liu
b
, J.K. Chen
a
a
The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics, Ningbo University, Ningbo 315000, PR China
b
College of Mechanical and Vehicle Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, PR China
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 11 September 2012
Received in revised form 5 December 2012
Available online 23 January 2013
Keywords:
Ferroelectric ceramics
Domain switching
Piezoelectric coupling eld
Transformed strain nucleus
Dislocation simulation
a b s t r a c t
The method of dislocation simulation of domain switching toughening is extended to the piezoelectric
coupling eld. As a typical example, domain switching toughening in the ferroelectric ceramic with a
semi-innite crack being perpendicular to spontaneous polarization direction subjected to negative elec-
tric eld is evaluated by using dislocation simulation. The transformed strain nucleus simulated by an
assembly of four different edge dislocations is constructed rst, then the generalized stress intensity fac-
tor generated by four dislocations in strain nucleus is used to simulate the transformed particle toughen-
ing. Based on this solution, the formulations for toughening arising from ferroelectric domain switching
are derived by the Greens function method. Taking BaTiO
3
ferroelectric ceramic for example, the exact
expression of generalized stress intensity factor is obtained, and it is discovered that the crack propaga-
tion can be promoted by domain switching induced by negative electrical load when crack surface is par-
allel to the isotropic plane, this result meets experimental phenomenon well. This method can also be
used to evaluate domain switching toughening in ferroelectric ceramics under some other load and polar-
ization types and those with some other cracks or holes.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Since the end of 20th century, the rapid development of informa-
tion industry has made the rise of techniques of microelectrome-
chanical systems, microelectronic elements and microelectronic
encapsulation, actuators, sensors, transducers, and so on. The mul-
ti-eld coupling of function materials and mesoscopic or micro-
scopic information structure mechanics has been proposed. When
the interaction between stress, strain or heat and electromagnetic
behavior is very strong, the mechanical mechanism is very impor-
tant for designs of MEMS.
The earliest experimental investigations about strength and
fracture toughness of ferroelectric ceramics should go back to the
eighties of 20th century. Winzer et al. (1989) reported the fracture
phenomenon of cored multiplayer electrostrictive actuators at
the earliest. Chung et al. (1989) observed the intergranular crack-
ing and damage of barium titanate and lead zirconate titanate in-
duced by electric eld. McHenry and Koepke (1983) observed
phenomena which were explained qualitatively by certain micro-
structural features, in particular internal stresses (Freiman and
Pohanka, 1989) and energy dissipation (Mehta and Virkar, 1990)
by domain switching processes. At the beginning of nineties of
20th century, Pak (1990, 1991) made a lot of investigations on frac-
ture mechanism of piezoelectric and ferroelectric materials. Furuta
and Uchino (1993) observed the process of crack nucleation and
propagation in internal electrode of ferroelectric detent. Recently,
electric-eld-induced fatigue crack growth in ferroelectric ceram-
ics was studied by Fang et al. (2010). Domain switching criterion
differentiating 90 degree switching and 180 degree switching
was proposed (Sun and Jiang, 1998), the corresponding domain
switching and criterion of domain switching in ferroelectric crystal
subjected to increasing electric eld was observed and discussed
by Jiang and Fang (2007a,b) and Engert et al. (2011) who combined
experimental observations and theoretical analysis.
These experimental and theoretical investigations on fracture
toughness and crack propagation of ferroelectric ceramics sub-
jected to mechanical or electrical or electromechanical load
showed that the toughness of ferroelectric ceramics can be sub-
stantially enhanced or reduced through domain switching. There
are three analytical methods to study domain switching toughen-
ing. One is an energy balance, the fracture toughness of ferroelec-
tric ceramics subjected to electromechanical load was analyzed by
the balance of energy supplied by the driving forces (Kreher, 2002).
Another is an Eshelby-type approach (Rice, 1972), Beom and Atluri
(2003) investigated the disciplines of style, size and shape of do-
main switching zone around crack tip in ferroelectric ceramics
subjected to electrical load and discussed fracture toughness vari-
ation of ferroelectrics under combined electric and mechanical
loading by using Eshelby-type approach, and moreover, Landis
and Chad (2003) studied the domain switching toughening of crack
tip in ferroelectric ceramics subjected to mechanical load by using
0020-7683/$ - see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijsolstr.2013.01.003

Corresponding author. Fax: +86 574 87600339.

E-mail addresses: xiechao@nbu.edu.cn, xiechao1983@yahoo.com.cn (C. Xie).
International Journal of Solids and Structures 50 (2013) 13251331
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Eshelby-type approach, but this method is not convenient when
multiple transformed zones are involved. The third approach is a
Greens function method, which is based on the following works.
Rose (1987) represented both dilatants and deviatoric transformed
strain components with a set of fundamental singular solutions
such as a force-doublet, similar to the work of Love (1927). His
methodology is rigorous, but not straightforward and inconvenient
for application. Ma (2011) applied dislocations to simulate the
transformed strain nucleus and carried out a thorough and system-
atic study on the Greens function method for formulating prob-
lems of transformation toughening to enable more powerful tools
for that application. In this method, the innitesimal element with
transformation strain can be represented by an assembly of four
dislocations, and the different Burgers of four dislocations can sim-
ulate different local strains. Then, the generalized SIF generated by
four dislocations in strain nucleus is used to simulate the trans-
formed particle toughening. At last, the whole domain switching
toughening can be derived by using the Green function integration.
However, in the past works of domain switching toughening,
the piezoelectric coupling effect was neglected, additionally, the
local internal stresses must be obtained rst in the evaluations of
the stress intensity factor at crack tip if we use Eshelby technique.
Those will lead that the results are not precise enough in piezoelec-
tric anisotropic eld. The spontaneous strain generated by domain
switching can be simulated directly by dislocations (Ma, 2011), the
method which applies the generalized stress led of dislocations to
evaluate the toughening of ferroelectric material could be the most
intuitive and effective approach.
In this paper, we rstly obtain the solution of nite crack
which can be regarded as the fundamental one, the solution of
semi-innite crack can be obtained by approximation technique
from this fundamental solution. Actually, the solutions of other
types of cracks and holes can also be obtained by using mapping
or approximation technique, so it is a widely applicable solution
procedure.
2. Statement of problem
When displacements, electric potential, stresses and electric
displacements are independent of x
3
axis in rectangular Cartesian
coordinates (x
1
, x
2
, x
3
), the problem can be called plane problem.
Linear constitutive relation for electro-elastic material possessing
transversal isotropy with respect to all three groups of properties
(elastic stiffness, piezoelectric coupling and dielectric permeabili-
ties), with x
2
axis being the axis of symmetry for each, forms
r
11
r
22
r
21
D
1
D
2
_

_
_

c
11
c
13
0
c
13
c
33
0
0 0 c
44
0 0 e
15
e
31
e
33
0
_

_
_

_
u
1;1
u
2;2
u
1;2
u
1;3
_

_
_

_
0 e
31
0 e
33
e
14
0
j
11
0
0 j
33
_

_
_

_
u
;1
u
;2
_ _
1
In order to investigate the switching toughening in ferroelectric
ceramics with the dislocation simulation method, a typical exam-
ple of a semi-innite crack being perpendicular to spontaneous
polarization direction in the ferroelectric ceramic subjected to neg-
ative electric eld load E
A
is proposed and shown in Fig. 1. Possess-
ing x
1
x
3
plane being the isotropic plane and crack surface being
traction free, the remote load vector can be denoted by
t
1
2
0 0 D
1
2

T
.
3. Stroh solution of transversely isotropic piezoelectric eld
Generalized displacement, generalized stress function and gen-
eralized stress components (Sosa, 1991; Chung and Ting, 1996;
Ting, 1996) are shown as
u u
1
u
2
u
T
2ReAfz 2
U /
1
/
2
/
3

T
2ReBfz 3
t
1
r
11
r
12
D
1

T
U
;2
4
t
2
r
21
r
22
D
2

T
U
;1
5
Here A
a
1
p
1
a
1
p
2
a
1
p
3

a
2
p
1
a
2
p
2
a
2
p
3

a
3
p
1
a
3
p
2
a
3
p
3

_
_
_
_
, and B
b
1
p
1
b
1
p
2
b
1
p
3

b
2
p
1
b
2
p
2
b
2
p
3

b
3
p
1
b
3
p
2
b
3
p
3

_
_
_
_
are 3 3 complex matrices, and fz f z
1
f z
2
f z
3

T
is the
vector of arbitrary function to be determined.
Matrices A and B should meet the following normalized orthog-
onality and closed relations,
Orthogonality relation
B
T
A
T

B
T
A
T
_ _
A

A
B

B
_ _

I 0
0 I
_ _
6
Closed relation
A

A
B

B
_ _
B
T
A
T

B
T
A
T
_ _

I 0
0 I
_ _
7
The corresponding intrinsic equation is shown as
c
11
c
44
p
2
c
s
p e
s
p
c
s
p c
44
c
33
p
2
e
15
e
33
p
2
e
s
p e
15
e
33
p
2
j
11
j
33
p
2

_
_

_
a
1
a
2
a
3
_

_
_

_
0
0
0
_

_
_

_ 8
If the determinant of coefcient matrix equals to zero, the fol-
lowing algebraic equation is obtained
d
3
p
6
d
2
p
4
d
1
p
2
d
0
0 9
where
d
0
c
11
c
44
j
11
e
2
15

d
1
c
44
c
11
j
33
e
2
15
j
11
c
11
c
33
c
2
44
c
2
s

2e
15
c
11
e
33
c
s
e
s
c
44
e
2
s
d
2
c
33
c
44
j
11
e
2
s
j
33
c
11
c
33
c
2
44
c
2
s

2e
33
c
44
e
15
c
s
e
s
c
11
e
2
33
d
3
c
44
c
33
j
33
e
2
33

c
s
c
13
c
44

e
s
e
15
e
31

Possessing three complex roots which imaginary parts are

greater than zero, the eigenvector A corresponding each p
a
can
be obtained, namely
A
E
1
x
P
Ferroelectric Ceramic
BaTiO
3
Semi-infinite crack
2
x
r

Fig. 1. A semi-innite crack being perpendicular to spontaneous polarization

direction in the ferroelectric ceramic subjected to negative electric eld load.
1326 C. Xie et al. / International Journal of Solids and Structures 50 (2013) 13251331
a
1
p
a

c
44
c
33
p
2
a
e
15
e
33
p
2
a
e
15
e
33
p
2
a
j
11
j
33
p
2
a

10
a
2
p
a

c
s
p
a
e
s
p
a
e
15
e
33
p
2
a
j
11
j
33
p
2
a

11
a
3
p
a

c
s
p
a
e
s
p
a
c
44
c
33
p
2
a
e
15
e
33
p
2
a

12
and the eigenvector B can be obtained from the following
relations
bp
a
R
T
p
a
Tap
a

1
p
a
Q p
a
Rap
a
13
where
Q
c
11
0 0
0 c
44
e
15
0 e
15
j
11
_
_
_
_
; R
0 c
13
e
31
c
44
0 0
e
15
0 0
_
_
_
_
; T
c
44
0 0
0 c
33
e
33
0 e
33
j
33
_
_
_
_
14
It is shown that eigenvectors A and B have numerous solutions
in Eq. (8). But the eigenvectors as shown in equations (10)(13)
may not meet the orthogonality and closed relations, this will lead
to the unreasonable results. Here, a method which can avoid the
solutions failure is proposed. It is assumed that matrices A
0
and
B
0
meet the orthogonality and closed relation.
A
0

a
110
a
120
a
130
a
210
a
220
a
230
a
310
a
320
a
330
_

_
_

_; B
0

b
110
b
120
b
130
b
210
b
220
b
230
b
310
b
320
b
330
_

_
_

_ 15
The relations of A to A
0
and B to B
0
are shown as follow
A A
0
m
1
0 0
0 m
2
0
0 0 m
3
_
_
_
_
; B B
0
m
1
0 0
0 m
2
0
0 0 m3
_
_
_
_
16
thus
A
1

1
m
1
0 0
0
1
m
2
0
0 0
1
m
3
_

_
_

_
A
1
0
; B
1

1
m
1
0 0
0
1
m
2
0
0 0
1
m
3
_

_
_

_
B
1
0
17
A
T

m
1
0 0
0 m
2
0
0 0 m
3
_

_
_

_A
T
0
; B
T

m
1
0 0
0 m
2
0
0 0 m
3
_

_
_

_B
T
0
18
where m
i
denotes coefcient.
So we must pay attention to the lower three forms of equations
in the solutions of this paper.
A < F > B
1
A
0
< F > B
1
0
19
B < F > B
1
B
0
< F > B
1
0
20
B < F > A
T
B B
T
A
1
B
T
B
0
< F > A
T
0
B
0
B
T
0
A
0

1
B
T
0
B
0
< F > IB
T
0
21
where F denotes an arbitrary function and h idenotes diagonal
matrix.
For nite crack surface being parallel to the isotropic plane, the
generalized stress intensity factor vector of nite insulated crack in
piezoelectric material under remote loads was given by the work of
Sosa (1991),
K
1
K
1
II
K
1
I
K
1
D

T

pa
p
t
1
2
22
where a is half length of the crack, additionally, K
1
II
, K
1
I
and K
1
D
de-
note model II stress intensity factor, model I stress intensity factor
and electric displacement intensity factor under remote loads,
respectively.
Considering the approximation relation near crack tip
z
a
a = r(cos h + p
a
sin h), z
a
a, z
a
+ a 2a, the generalized dis-
placement and generalized stress components (Sosa, 1991) near
crack tip can be written as
u

2r
p
_
Re Ah

cos h p
a
sinh
_
iB
1
_ _
K
1
23
t
1

1

2pr
p Re B
p
a

cos h p
a
sinh
_
_ _
B
1
_ _
K
1
24
t
2

1

2pr
p Re B
1

cos h p
a
sinh
_
_ _
B
1
_ _
K
1
25
4. Domain switching
The summary of ferroelectric properties such as a spontaneous
polarization and domain switching can be found in Jaffe et al.
(1971), Lines and Glass (1977) and Xu (1991). The details of a con-
stitutive law for ferroelectric ceramics were given in Hwang et al.
(1995), Huber et al. (1999) and Kamlah and Tsakmakis (1999).
The ferroelectric domain switching was widely investigated by
many researchers, such as Hwang et al. (1995) and Zhang et al.
(2006) combined experiments with theories. The results of investi-
gations showed that the direction of spontaneous polarization can
approach the direction of applied electric eld. Ferroelectric
ceramics possess domains with uniform polarization. Sufciently
large external loads such as electric eld can induce 90 or 180
domain switching. The domain switching criterion proposed by
Hwang et al. (1995) is employed here for investigating the ferro-
electric ceramics subjected to negative electric eld.
90 domain switching
r
ij
De
ij
E
i
DP
i
PP
s
E
c
26
180 domain switching
r
ij
De
ij
E
i
DP
i
P2P
s
E
c
27
where E
i
denotes the electric eld vector, DP
i
denotes the change in
spontaneous polarization, E
c
denotes the coercive electric eld and
P
s
denotes the saturation polarization strength, r
ij
denotes the
stress tensor, De
ij
denotes changes in spontaneous strain.
Domain switching can induce the changes in spontaneous strain
and polarization and dominate the macro-performance. For a fer-
roelectric material with an uniformly poled domain, when the ini-
tial polarization vector forms an angle u with x
1
-axis, the changes
in spontaneous polarization and strain due to 90 domain switch-
ing can be expressed as
DP
i

2
p
P
s
cos/
3
4
p
sin/
3
4
p
_ _
28
where the values of
3
4
p and
3
4
p correspond to counterclockwise
and clockwise 90 switching, respectively.
De
ij
c
s
cos 2/ sin2/
sin2/ cos 2/
_ _
29
where c
s
is the spontaneous strain associated with t
(i)
= R
kj
n
j
e
k
do-
main switching, the magnitude of which is (c a)/a, a and c denote
the length of base and side of tetragonal cell, respectively.
The changes in spontaneous polarization and strain due to 180
domain switching can be expressed as
C. Xie et al. / International Journal of Solids and Structures 50 (2013) 13251331 1327
DP
i
2P
s
cos /
sin/
_ _
30
De
ij
0 31
Substituting Eqs. (24), (25), (28) and (29) into Eq. (26),
b b
lm
e
l
e
m

@fReAh

z
2
a
a
2
p
iB
1
g
@a
1

pa
p

1

2pr
p
ReAh
1

cos hp
a
sinh
p iB
1
do-
main switching criterion can be shown as
K
1T

2pr
p Re Bh
p
a

coshp
a
sinh
_ iB
1
_ _
T
c
s
cos2/
c
s
sin2/
0
_

_
_

K
1T

2pr
p Re Bh
1

coshp
a
sinh
_ iB
1
_ _
T
c
s
sin2/
c
s
cos2/
0
_

_
_

K
1T

2pr
p
Re Ahcosh

coshp
a
sinh
_
iB
1
_ _
T

Re Ah
sin
2
hp
a
sinhcosh

coshp
a
sinh
p iB
1
_ _
T
_

_
_

_
0
0

2
p
P
s
cos/
3
4
p
_

_
_

K
1T

2pr
p
Re Ahsinh

coshp
a
sinh
_
iB
1
_ _
T

Re Ah
sinhcoshp
a
cos
2
h

coshp
a
sinh
p iB
1
_ _
T
_

_
_

0
0

2
p
P
s
sin/
3
4
p
_

_
_

_
PP
s
E
c
32
Substituting Eqs. (24), (25), (30) and (31) into Eq. (27), 180
domain switching criterion can be shown as
K
1T

2pr
p
ReAhcosh

coshp
a
sinh
_
iB
1

ReAh
sin
2
hp
a
sinhcosh

coshp
a
sinh
p iB
1

T
_
_
_
_
_
_
0
0
2P
s
cos/
_

_
_

K
1T

2pr
p
ReAhsinh

coshp
a
sinh
_
iB
1

ReAh
sinhcoshp
a
cos
2
h

coshp
a
sinh
p iB
1

T
_
_
_
_
_
_
0
0
2P
s
sin/
_

_
_

_P2P
s
E
c
33
Taking BaTiO
3
ceramic (Kolleck et al. (2000)) for example, its
typical material parameters are shown as follows
c
11
150GPa c
12
66GPa c
13
66GPa
c
33
146GPa c
44
44GPa e
31
4:35C=m
2
e
33
17:5C=m
2
e
15
11:4 C=m
2
j
11
98:710
10
C=Vm
j
33
11210
10
C=Vm p
s
0:05C=m
2
c
s
0:0005
E
c
0:5 MV=m C1N=m
34
Denoting normalized dimension r
0
2p
Ps
K
1
D

2
r, the switching
zones around crack tip are shown as Fig. 2.
5. Dislocation simulation of domain switching toughening
5.1. Dislocation simulation of strain nucleus
Considering a differential element with an area dA = dx
0
dy
0
,
which undergoes an unconstrained irreversible transformation
with two principal strains e
x0
and e
y0
expressed in local principal
coordinates x
0
and y
0
as shown in Fig. 3, the innitesimal element
with transformation strain was represented by an assembly of four
dislocations, the strain nucleus can be modeled in terms of the
mathematical edge dislocation solutions (Ma, 2011).
Considering the spontaneous polarization direction / w
p
2
,
The location and generalized Burgers vectors of four edge disloca-
tion are shown as
d
1
e
x0
0
dx
0
0
_

_
_

_; d
3
e
x0
0
dx
0
0
_

_
_

_; 35
d
2
e
y0
dy
0
0
0
_

_
_

_; d
4
e
y0
dy
0
0
0
_

_
_

_; 36
s
1
s
dy
0
2
; s
3
s
dy
0
2
; 37
s
2
s p
a
dx
0
2
; s
4
s p
a
dx
0
2
: 38
The corresponding Burgers vector d is bestowed with a special
meaning which represents the spontaneous strains of the differen-
tial element due to domain switching.
Referring to the work of Rose (1987), the different Burgers of
four dislocations can simulate different local strains. When e
x0
= e
y0
,
the solution for a purely dilatational transformation is reached. On
the other hand, whene
x0
= e
y0
, the solution for purely shear trans-
formation is reached.
5.2. Generalized SIF generated by transformed particle
By using the perturbation technique, the complex potential vec-
tors for four line dislocations (Chen et al., 2005) located at z
dj
(j = 1,
2, 3, 4) in an innite material can be expressed as
fz f
0
z f

39
Fig. 2. Switching zone around crack tip.
1328 C. Xie et al. / International Journal of Solids and Structures 50 (2013) 13251331
where f
0
(z) is associated with the unperturbed eld that is related
to the solutions of an innite homogeneous medium without the
crack and is holomorphic in the entire domain except at z
dj
.
Referring to the works by Ma (2011) and Chen et al. (2005), the
differential form of f
0
(z) can be obtained, namely
f
0
z
;1

e
x0
dx
0
dy
0
2pi
1
z
a
z
sa

2
_ _
B
T
0
1
0
_

_
_

_
e
y0
dx
0
dy
0
2pi
p
a
z
a
z
sa

2
_ _
B
T
1
0
0
_

_
_

_
40
Finite order potentials for the effect per unit area characterize
the transformed strain nucleus, located at s in an innite plane,
and are expressed as
f
0
z
dx
0
dy
0

e
x0
2pi
1
z
a
z
sa
_ _
B
T
0
1
0
_

_
_

_
e
y0
2pi
p
a
z
a
z
sa
_ _
B
T
1
0
0
_

_
_

_ 41
We introduce a mapping function which maps the nite crack
face in the z-plane into the unit circle |f| = 1 in the f-plane.
z
a
2
f
1
f
; f
1
a
z

z
2
a
2
p
42
where f = n + ig.
As a result, the boundary condition of traction free in the
f-plane becomes
Uf
c
0; jf
c
j 1 43
Using standard analytic continuation arguments (Muskhelish-
vili, 1953), we have
ff f
0
f B
1

B f
*
0
f
1
44
Noting that
1
z z
s

2
f
s
ff
s

1=f
s
f1=f
s

af
s

1
f
s

; 45
the singularity1/f
s
in unit circle can be neglected.
In the physic plane, the complex potential function can be ex-
pressed as
Uz
dx
0
dy
0
2Re

e
x0
2pi
BH
1
B
T
0
1
0
_

_
_

_
e
y0
2pi
Bhp
a
iH
1
B
T
1
0
0
_

_
_

e
x0
2pi

BH
2

B
T
0
1
0
_

_
_

_
e
y0
2pi

Bhp
a
iH
2

B
T
1
0
0
_

_
_

_
_

_
_

_
46
where
H
1

z
sa

z
2
sa
a
2
_

z
2
sa
a
2
_
z
a
z
sa

z
2
a
a
2
_

z
2
sa
a
2
_

_ _
A
T
B B
T
A
1
47
H
2

z
sa

z
2
sa
a
2
_

z
2
sa
a
2
_
z
a
z
sa

z
2
a
a
2
_

z
2
sa
a
2
_

_ _
A
T
B B
T
A
1
48
The generalized stress vectors generated by strain nucleus can
be obtained by inserting the Eq. (46) into Eqs. (4) and (5), and
the generalized SIF at right tip of nite crack generated by strain
nucleus is dened as
K
0
Lim
x
1
!a

2px
1
a
_
U
;1
z
dx
0
dy
0
49
Thus
K
0
2Re

e
x0
2pi
BF
1
B
T
0
1
0
_

_
_

_
e
y0
2pi
Bhp
a
iF
1
B
T
1
0
0
_

_
_

e
x0
2pi

BF
2

B
T
0
1
0
_

_
_

_
e
y0
2pi

Bhp
a
iF
2

B
T
1
0
0
_

_
_

_
_

_
_

_
50
where
F
1

pa
p
z
sa

z
2
sa
a
2
_

z
2
sa
a
2
_
a z
sa

z
2
sa
a
2
_

2
_ _
A
T
B B
T
A
1
;
51
F
2

pa
p z
sa

z
2
sa
a
2
_

z
2
sa
a
2
_
a z
sa

z
2
sa
a
2
_

2
_ _
A
T
B B
T
A
1
: 52
Thus, generalized SIF generated by strain nucleus in domain
switching zone near nite crack tip is obtained. Actually, the solu-
tion of the semi-innite crack can be simply obtained by using the
superposition principle which can easily nd the exact complex
potentials for the interaction of a transformation strain source with
a semi-innite crack and following the procedure described previ-
ously (Ma et al., 2006), However, the problem of semi-innite crack
is just a typical example. The purpose of this paper is to investigate
dislocation simulation method of domain switching toughening in
ferroelectric ceramics in different conditions, so we need a widely
applicable solution procedure which can be used to solve the prob-
lems of ferroelectric material containing other kinds of holes or
cracks, based on this, the complicated mapping and approximation
technique should be applied. The solution of nite crack can be re-
garded as the fundamental one.
Fig. 3. A concentrated transformed strain located in an innite plane piezoelectric
solid.
C. Xie et al. / International Journal of Solids and Structures 50 (2013) 13251331 1329
Considering the approximation z
s
a = r
s
(cos h
s
+ p
a
sin h
s
),
z
s
+ a 2a, z
s
a, z
s
a r
s
cos h
s
p
a
sinh
s
, z
s
a 2a, z
s
a
and the semi-innite crack a ? 1, F
1
and F
2
can be written as
F
1

p
p
1
f2r
s
cos h
s
p
a
sinh
s
g
3=2
_ _
A
T
B B
T
A
1
53
F
2

p
p
1
f2r
s
cos h
s
p
a
sinh
s
g
3=2
_ _
A
T
B B
T
A
1
54
5.3. Green function method
In this section, the obtained solution in the above section is
used to formulate the transformed inclusion problems. Above all,
we must emphasize that the following is a continuum description
of polycrystalline systems and is based on averaging over sufcient
numbers of grains within the matrix, including transformed
particles.
The domain switching density function over the transformed
zone is denoted by D(x
1s
, x
2s
). Based on the SIF generated by the
transformed particles, the net SIF at the crack tip due to the pres-
ence of the switching zone is given by
K
ds

_ _
A
K
0
Dx
1s
; x
2s
r
s
dr
s
dh
s
55
Where A indicates the domain switching zones and K
ds
indicates the
generalized SIF arising from ferroelectric domain switching.
For the model of a semi-innite crack being perpendicular to
spontaneous polarization direction in the ferroelectric ceramic
subjected to negative electric eld.
Load, initial polarization direction forms an angle / w
p
2
with x
1
-axis and D(x
1s
, x
2s
) = 1. When domain switches from w to
w
p
2
, we can nd that
e
x0
De
22
c
s
; e
y0
De
11
c
s
56
and from w to w p, we can nd
e
x0
e
y0
0 57
6. Mechanical energy release ratio criterion for cleavage
The generalized stress intensity factor composed of domain
switching and applied electric eld is given by
K
macromeso
K
1
K
ds
K
1
D
0
k
1
1 k
2
_

_
_

_ 58
where k
1

K
Ids
K
1
D
and k
2

K
Dds
K
1
D
.
The mechanical energy release ratio criterion for this model can
be shown as
G
m

1
2

~
L
22
K
2
I

~
L
24
K
I
K
D
P2C
s
59
where
~
L
~
L
11
0 0
0
~
L
22
~
L
24
0
~
L
42
~
L
44
_

_
_

_ ReiAB
1
60
and C
s
is surface energy.
As shown in Fig. 4, the critical applied electric displacement
intensity factor calculated by dislocation simulation is about
2:69 10
4
C m
3=2
.
7. Conclusions
The purpose of this paper is to extend dislocation simulation
method of domain switching toughening to piezoelectric coupling
eld. Because Eshelby technique is not convenient when multiple
transformed zones are involved but the dislocation complex poten-
tial can be neatly applied in the problems of ferroelectric materials
possessing complex constitutive laws and containing many kinds
of holes and cracks surrounded by transformed regions with differ-
ent geometries. Thus, the dislocation simulation should be the
most intuitive, convenient and precise method, which can also be
used to evaluate domain switching toughening in ferroelectric
ceramics under some other types of loads and polarizations. How-
ever, this solution procedure is restricted to plane problem, when
the change of polarization direction is out of plane, the model is
unavailable. It is easily discovered that edge dislocations cannot
simulate the strain nucleus, and mixed type dislocations should
be considered.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to deeply appreciate the support by the
Ph.D. Programs Foundation of Ministry of Education of China
(20123305120008), the Scientic Research Project of Department
of Education of Zhejiang Province (Y201223508), the Open Fund
of Zhejiang Provincial Top Key Discipline (zj1117) and the K.C.
Wong Magana Fund.
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