Phase Field Modeling and Computer Simulation of Multiferroic Materials
Yongmei Jin (Michigan Tech), Yu Wang (Michigan Tech), Stephen Kampe (Michigan Tech), Shuxiang Dong (Peking University)
Mechanics of Phase Transforming and Multifunctional Materials
Tue 9:00 - 10:30
CIT 219
Multiferroic materials are phase transforming materials that simultaneously involve multiple ferroic order parameters, such as ferromagnetic, ferroelectric, ferroelastic materials and their composites, with important applications in sensor, actuator, transducer and information storage technologies. Due to their ferroic nature, the material properties and multifunctionalities arise from the underlying domain-level processes, which actively respond to external stimuli as well as sensitively depend on internal microstructures. In this talk, we present a unified mesoscale phase field modeling of multiferroic materials, which allows us to simulate domain evolutions, predict material properties, and identify physical mechanisms of various ferroic single crystals, polycrystals and composites within the same mathematical and computational framework. The model is employed to carry out computer simulation studies of magnetostrictive and ferroelectric materials, conventional and magnetic shape memory alloys, magnetoelectric composites, and piezoelectric-reinforced metal-matrix composites. As an essential component, elastostatic, electrostatic and magnetostatic interactions are all configuration-dependent and exhibit fundamentally similar dipole-dipole-like long-range interaction feature, which are conveniently treated in reciprocal space using fast Fourier transform with high computational efficiency. The characterization of domain evolutions in terms of field variables allows natural description of arbitrarily complex morphologies without explicitly tracking domain boundaries or imposing a priori constraint. Simulation examples are presented to demonstrate the model’s predictive power and ability to identify new mechanisms for improved materials properties and help design and control multifunctional materials.