Coupling Piezoelectricity with Acoustics
Using piezoelectric materials for an acoustic application is common, such as in sonars, microphones, sensors, and so forth. This is why coupling piezoelectricity with acoustic domains is of particular interest for these applications.
The multiphysics couplings between Solid Mechanics and the acoustics interfaces require the Acoustics Module.
Compared to a single piezoelectric model, you need to add a pressure acoustics physics interface, for example, Pressure Acoustics, Frequency Domain or Pressure Acoustics, Transient (depending on which study type you want to use) plus an Acoustic-Structure Boundary coupling under the Multiphysics node. You can also directly create the nodes that are needed for coupling by adding an Acoustic-Piezoelectric Interaction interface from the Model Wizard or Add Physics windows. If solid and acoustic domains are correctly defined, then the right coupling boundaries are automatically selected. Then specify domains of application for each physics.
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Select solid domains and Piezoelectric Material domains in Solid Mechanics.
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Select electrostatic domains and Charge Conservation, Piezoelectric domains in Electrostatics.
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Select acoustic domains in a Pressure Acoustics node.
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Under the Multiphysics branch, confirm that selections for Piezoelectricity and Acoustic-Structure Boundary are the right ones. If several Pressure Acoustics, Solid Mechanics, or Electrostatics interfaces are present, select the right ones that need to be coupled in the multiphysics interfaces.
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Continue the modeling process by entering the settings for each physics interface and feature and define materials.