A phenomenological model for the magnetodielectric effect in magnetoelectric composites

•Room temperature magnetodielectric coupling in magnetoelectric systems are reported.•The phenomenological Model for the Magnetodielectric Effect in Magnetoelectric Composites are proposed.•The eletro-magneto-mechanical interaction is related to the MD effect at proposed model. This paper proposes a phenomenological description for the nonlinear dielectric permittivity dependence on magnetic field, also called Magnetodielectric (MD) Effect, in strain mediated magnetoelectric composites. The description is derived by incorporating the dielectric dependence on electric polarization, thermodynamic constitutive equations, and magneto-mechanical effects. Moreover, the proposed expression successfully reproduces the experimental behavior reported in existing literature and can provide an explanation for the observed anisotropic effect. Simulations performed using the derived expression demonstrate an inherent correlation between the coupling of piezoelectric and magnetostrictive coefficients and the observed MD coefficient curves as measured in experiments. The validity of the model was verified by application to KNN/CFO and KNN/NFO multiferroic particulate composite samples.