Study on the Characteristics of Cement-Based Magnetoelectric Composites Using COMSOL

TL;DR

This study uses COMSOL to model and analyze the magnetoelectric properties of cement-based composites, revealing how factors like magnetic fields and layer thickness affect performance.

Contribution

A novel multiphysics-coupled model for cement-based magnetoelectric composites is developed and validated in COMSOL.

Findings

The model effectively reproduces internal stress–strain and voltage evolution in the composite.

A thin piezoelectric layer with a thick magnetostrictive layer maximizes magnetoelectric performance.

Longitudinal and transverse magnetoelectric coefficients show different coupling mechanisms due to anisotropy.

Abstract

A multiphysics-coupled 2–2 cement-based magnetoelectric composite model is established in COMSOL 6.2. This model is used to not only systematically investigate the magnetoelectric-coupling behavior, but also quantify the effects of the magnetic field, frequency, and layer-thickness ratio on the material’s magnetoelectric properties. The results demonstrate that the model effectively reproduces the internal stress–strain distribution and voltage evolution. Specifically, the magnetostrictive and piezoelectric layers exhibit mechanical responses with pronounced non-uniformity, which is attributed to boundary effects. The bias magnetic field plays a crucial regulatory role: the output voltage increases linearly from 0 to 2000 Oe and then saturates at higher fields. Under an alternating magnetic field, the composite exhibits pronounced resonance characteristics, whose frequency is jointly governed by structural dimensions and the bias field. The dynamic response was further analyzed using the magnetic flux density modulus, displacement profiles at selected locations, and voltage evolution across the piezoelectric layer. Notably, the thickness of each functional phase exerts a pronounced and distinct influence on the composite’s magnetoelectric coupling, with markedly different trends between phases. Optimization results show that a thin piezoelectric layer combined with a thick magnetostrictive layer yields the highest magnetoelectric performance. Additionally, the longitudinal and transverse magnetoelectric coefficients exhibit markedly different coupling mechanisms—this is owing to the misalignment between the magnetic-field and electric-polarization directions, and this difference further reveals the intrinsic anisotropy of the magnetoelectric response. Overall, this study provides a crucial theoretical foundation for the design and optimization of high-performance cement-based magnetoelectric composites.

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