Inclusions and inhomogeneities in electroelastic media with hexagonal symmetry

For a long time, the absence of explicit Green's functions (fundamental sol utions) for electroelastic media has hindered progress in the modelling of the properties of piezoelectric materials. Michelitsch's recently derived e xplicit electroelastic Green's function for the infinite medium with hexago nal symmetry (transversely isotropic medium) [4] is used here to obtain com pact closed-form expressions for the electroelastic analogue of the Eshelby tensor for spheroidal inclusions. This represents a key quantity for the m aterial properties of piezoelectric solids and analysis of the related elec troelastic fields in inclusions. For the limiting case of continuous fibers our results coincide with Levin's expressions [8]. The derived method is u seful for an extension to non-spheroidal inclusions or inhomogeneities havi ng an axis of rotational symmetry parallel to the hexagonal c-axis.