A discontinuous Galerkin method based isogeometric analysis framework for flexoelectricity in micro-architected dielectric solids

Flexoelectricity, the generation of electric field in response to a strain gradient, is a universal electromechanical coupling, dominant only at small scales due to its requirement of high strain gradients. This phenomenon is governed by a set of coupled fourth-order partial differential equations (PDEs), which require $C^1$ continuity of the basis in finite element methods for the numerical solution. While Isogeometric analysis (IGA) has been proven to meet this continuity requirement due to its higher-order B-spline basis functions, it is limited to simple geometries that can be discretized with a single IGA patch. For complex domains, e.g., architected materials, which require more than one patch for discretization, IGA faces the challenge of $C^0$ continuity across the patch boundaries. Here we present a discontinuous Galerkin method-based isogeometric analysis framework, capable of solving fourth-order PDEs of flexoelectricity in the domain of truss-based architected materials. An interior penalty-based stabilization is implemented to ensure the stability of the solution. The present formulation is advantageous over the analogous finite element methods since it only requires the computation of interior boundary contributions on the boundaries of patches. As each strut can be modeled with only two trapezoid patches, the number of $C^0$ continuous boundaries is largely reduced. We consider four unit cells to construct the truss lattices and analyze their flexoelectric response. The truss lattices show a higher magnitude of flexoelectricity compared to the solid beam and retain this superior electromechanical response with the increasing size of the structure. This demonstrates the potential of architected materials to scale up flexoelectricity to larger scales, and achieve universal electromechanical response in meso/macro scale dielectric materials.