Three-Dimensional Pyroelectric Analysis of a Functionally Graded Piezoelectric Hollow Sphere

A three-dimensional analytical piezothermoelastic solution is presented for a functionally graded piezoelectric spherical shell subjected to various thermal boundary conditions applied on the inner and outer surfaces. Material properties are assumed to vary along the radius, r, obeying a power law. Both the thermal field and the pyroelectric responses are resolved using the state space method. On introducing three displacement and two stress functions, two independent kinds of state equations are derived from the basic equations of piezoelectricity. It is interesting that the first kind is a homogeneous equation only related to the purely elastic behavior of the sphere, yet the second has an inhomogeneous term associated with the thermal effect to determine the pyroelectric responses. The state equations are solved by expanding the field variables into series of spherical harmonic functions. Numerical examples are performed to investigate the influence of material inhomogeneity on the pyroelectric responses of the spherical shell.