Acoustic and Piezoelectric Properties of 0-3 Barium Zirconate Titanate-Portland Cement Composites-Effects of BZT Content and Particle Size

Abstract

Lead-free 0-3 Barium zirconate titanate (BZT)-Portland cement (PC) composites, environmentally friendly piezoelectric materials, which are expected to find applications in smart concrete structures due to their good compatibility with the host concrete, are studied. The results indicate that the composites can be tuned to a compatible value to match the requirement of concrete structure. For 425 μm BZT particle size used for the range tested at the same volume led to optimum piezoelectricity in composites. The electromechanical coupling coefficient was found to be ≈17% for 70% BZT composite. Several mathematical models are applied for the calculation of the piezoelectric coefficient of the composites and the experimental results were closest to those calculated from the cube model.

Keywords:

• Composites
• particle size
• acoustic properties
• piezoelectric properties
• BZT

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to members of staff at the Electroceramics Research Laboratory and Chiang Mai University for the research facilities made possible for this research work. The authors would like to express their gratitude for financial support from the Thailand Research Fund (TRF) through the Royal Golden Jubilee Ph.D. Program (Grant No. PHD/0042/2552) to Ruamporn Potong and Assistant Prof. Dr. Arnon Chaipanich is acknowledged. The authors would also like to express their gratitude for Research Grant awarded to Assistant Prof. Dr. Arnon Chaipanich by the Thailand Research Fund (TRF), the Commission on Higher Education (Thailand) and Chiang Mai University. The Graduate School of Chiang Mai University is also acknowledged. Authors will also like to acknowledge the support of INAMM/NSF (#0844081).