Single crystal ferroelectric materials, e.g. BaTiO₃, have recently been exploited to achieve large strain actuation through domain switching and material development; see Park and Shrout (1997) and Burcsu et al. (2004). When subjected to an electromechanical load, the strains obtained in single crystals were observed to be of higher magnitude than those obtained with commercial polycrystalline ferroelectric materials. The energetics and kinetics of ferroelectric single crystal materials can be modelled by considering, e.g., mixture theory, wherein the mixture consists of a number of electromechanical phases or variants. With the help of a laminate-based approach, the polarisation and the deformationmicrostructure arising in such ferroelectric single crystals is modelled in the framework of continuum thermodynamics for quasi-static electromechanical processes. Extending previous work on the modelling of rate-dependent switching behaviour of ferroelectric single crystals, this contribution focuses on the formulation of an energy-enthalpy-based model including a dissipation potential to simulate the evolution of domain microstructures which results in switching of the polarisation in such materials.

Keywords: Single crystal ferroelectrics, Domain switching, Laminate-based modelling.