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Homogenisation of Nonlinear Behaviour for Electrical Engineering Materials

The PhD thesis proposal focuses on the development of Homogenisation tools for studying nonlinear behavior in Electrical Engineering materials, particularly those exhibiting coupled effects like electro-elastic and magneto-elastic coupling. The research aims to enhance the understanding of composite materials to optimize their properties for applications in sensors and actuators, while addressing the challenges posed by nonlinear behaviors and coupling effects. Candidates should have a Master's degree in relevant fields and possess programming skills, along with a good command of English.

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4 views3 pages

Homogenisation of Nonlinear Behaviour for Electrical Engineering Materials

The PhD thesis proposal focuses on the development of Homogenisation tools for studying nonlinear behavior in Electrical Engineering materials, particularly those exhibiting coupled effects like electro-elastic and magneto-elastic coupling. The research aims to enhance the understanding of composite materials to optimize their properties for applications in sensors and actuators, while addressing the challenges posed by nonlinear behaviors and coupling effects. Candidates should have a Master's degree in relevant fields and possess programming skills, along with a good command of English.

Uploaded by

Adisu
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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PhD Thesis proposal form

Discipline
Physics
(Electrical Engineering)

Doctoral School
Science and Technologies of Information, Telecommunication and Systems –
STITS (http://www.ed-stits.fr/) – ED 422

Thesis subject title: Homogenisation of nonlinear behaviour for Electrical Engineering materials

 Laboratory name and web site: Laboratoire de Génie Electrique de Paris (LGEP)
http://www.lgep.supelec.fr/

 PhD supervisor (contact person):


 Name: Laurent DANIEL
 Position: Associate Professor
 email: [email protected]
 Phone number: + 33 1 69 85 16 39

Other contact person: Romain CORCOLLE, [email protected], +33169851666.

 Thesis proposal (max 1500 words):

Materials with coupled behaviour exhibit a coupling between different physical fields. For
instance, the magnetisation depends on the mechanical state, and conversely the strain depends on
the magnetic state (magneto-mechanical coupling). In fact, most of material exhibit such a
coupling effect but it is usually negligible. However, some materials exhibit considerable coupling
effects. From these latter materials, a wide range of sensors and actuators can be developed
(sonars, speakers, displacement sensors, etc...).

In the area of Electrical Engineering, two types of coupled behaviour receive a specific attention:
electro-elastic coupling (piezoelectric materials for example) and magneto-elastic coupling
(magnetostrictive materials for example). These coupling effects can be beneficial
(sensors/actuators) but also can be harmful for the user or the systems (for instance the strain in
transformers due to the magneto-elastic coupling generates noise and vibrations). In order to
combine good functional properties (magnetic/electric) with appropriate mechanical strength, the
development of composite materials has been growing significantly over the past decades.

A better understanding of the properties of these composite materials is a key point to the
development of compact and accurate sensors or actuators. The description of their behaviour has
been the object of interest over a range of scales from the basic physics at the atomic scale,
through the materials science of microstructural effects, to the technological interest in exploiting
their properties at the macroscale. In order to establish the links between the constituents and the
microstructure of these materials to their macroscopic properties, a growing investment has been
made in the development of so-called Homogenisation techniques.
Homogenisation is a modelling approach designed for the study of heterogeneous materials. It
enables to determine the effective behaviour of heterogeneous materials (or composite materials)
from some statistical information about the microstructure. Compared to full-field approaches
such as Finite Element models, Homogenisation only provides mean-field information but in
return does not require a heavy computational power. Indeed, in the case of linear behaviour, the
Homogenisation process can be performed analytically in many cases. This is the reason why
Homogenisation tools are very suitable for the optimization of different constitutive parameters of
composite materials.

Homogenisation can be used to define optimal compositions or optimal microstructures for


specific application. It can also provide homogenised constitutive laws to be implemented into
Finite Element numerical tools for structures for which the heterogeneous constituents cannot be
meshed down to the heterogeneity scale. It then leads to much coarser meshing and thus reduces
significantly computation times.

Homogenisation tools have been mainly developed for uncoupled behaviour. Considering
coupling effects for Homogenisation theory is a more recent research topic, particularly due to the
wider use of composite materials. Over the past few years, LGEP has focused on the modelling of
Electrical Engineering composite materials through Homogenisation. A tool has been developed
in the context of Multiphysics but it is limited to linear behaviour.

Trying to develop more efficient systems leads to use the materials in harsher environments
(higher speeds, high temperature,...) and most of the time, the materials used in Electrical
Engineering exhibit a nonlinear behaviour on this range of operating fields.

In order to develop accurate modelling tools, it is needed that Homogenisation takes into account
both the nonlinearity of the behaviour and the coupling effects. Such a tool would be very useful
to study functional composite materials. Meanwhile, nonlinear Homogenisation is still receiving a
lot of attention from the research community, while coupling effects also need to be implemented.

The subject proposed for this thesis is the development of Homogenisation tools for the study of
Electrical Engineering materials. Many different approaches will be explored (linearization
schemes) and compared to results obtained from Finite Element models for example. New
coupling effects such as the magnetoelectric effect obtained from a piezoelectric/magnetostrictive
composite will be studied. This effect appears in such composites although inexistent in any of the
constituents.
 Publications of the laboratory in the field (max 5):
[1] L. Daniel, R. Corcolle: A Note on the Effective Magnetic Permeability of Polycrystals, IEEE
Transactions on Magnetics, 43(7):3153-3158 (2007).
[2] L. Daniel, O. Hubert, N. Buiron, R. Billardon: Reversible magneto-elastic behavior: a multiscale
approach, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids, 56(3):1018-1042 (2008).
[3] R. Corcolle, L. Daniel, F. Bouillault: Generic formalism for Homogenisation of coupled
behavior: Application to magnetoelectroelastic behavior, Physical Review B, 78(21):214110
(2008).
[4] R. Corcolle, L. Daniel, F. Bouillault: Intraphase fluctuations in heterogeneous magnetic materials,
Journal of Applied Physics, 105(12):123913 (2009).
[5] R. Corcolle, V. Préault, L. Daniel: Second Order Moments in Linear Smart Material Composites,
IEEE Transactions on Magnetics, 48(2):663-666 (2012).

 Specific requirements to apply, if any:


- Master in Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering or Applied Mathematics,
- Good English skills
- Basic knowledge on numerical methods applied to electromagnetism and/or mechanics
- Basic programming skills in any language (Matlab, C++, C…)

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