Menu
Monica Dingle Palmer completed her BSc in Civil Engineering at UPC in 2018 and her MSc in Civil Engineering as well in 2020, also at UPC. Right after graduation, she became a PhD candidate under the supervision of Dr. Irene Arias and Dr. David Codony in the Flexocomp group at LaCàN. Her PhD focuses on continuum and computational modelling of electromechanical phenomena at small scales.
In recent years, with the rise of nanoscale technologies and consequent miniaturization of devices, the bulk flexoelectric effect has gained much interest from researchers around the world. However, there is no agreement in the quantitative characterisations of this effect. At small scales, the surface-to-volume ratio is inherently large, hence suggesting that surface effects might be relevant enough to affect the overall electromechanical behaviour of the material.
This PhD thesis presents a continuum model for elastic dielectric materials with flexoelectric properties which successfully integrates the effects of surfaces. The governing equations and boundary conditions for the problem are derived and a B-Spline-based computational strategy is presented in order to numerically solve the resulting high-order boundary value problem, without restrictions on boundary conditions or geometries. Then, the influence of surface effects on the electromechanical response of different devices is quantified through analytical approximations and numerical simulations. The results show that surface piezoelectricity is reminiscent of the bulk flexoelectric effect and can be as relevant for high surface-to-volume designs at small enough scales.
This thesis also includes the first steps towards a generalisation of the presented framework, where the boundary value problem is reformulated in a different set of coordinates.
Speaker:
Date:
Time:
Category:
