Modeling of stress relaxation associated with an electrically-induced phase transformation

Stress relaxation due to an electrically-induced phase transformation in a ferroelectric crystal bar stretched by a hard-loading device is studied in the one-dimensional setting of electromechanics. According to the proposed model, the stress relaxation rate is governed by a nonlinear ordinary differential equation which resulted from the kinetic relation that controls the evolution of the phase transformation. A numerical analysis basing on simplifying approximation indicates that the stress starts to decrease when the intensity of the applied electric field reaches a critical value and that a stronger electric field results in a quicker stress reduction.