Wave propagation through a flexoelectric piezoelectric slab sandwiched by two piezoelectric half-spaces

•The wave propagation through a flexoelectric piezoelectric slab sandwiched by two piezoelectric half-spaces is studied.•The non-traditional boundary conditions including the monopolar and dipolar tractions are considered.•The transfer matrix of the flexoelecric piezoelectric slab is obtained by the reduction of order.•The energy flux is calculated and the energy conservation is checked. Reflection and transmission of plane waves through a flexoelectric piezoelectric slab sandwiched by two piezoelectric half-spaces are studied in this paper. The secular equations in the flexoelectric piezoelectric material are first derived from the general governing equation. Different from the classical piezoelectric medium, there are five kinds of coupled elastic waves in the piezoelectric material with the microstructure effects taken into consideration. The state vectors are obtained by the summation of contributions from all possible partial waves. The state transfer equation of flexoelectric piezoelectric slab is derived from the motion equation by the reduction of order, and the transfer matrix of flexoelectric piezoelectric slab is obtained by solving the state transfer equation. By using the continuous conditions at the interface and the approach of partition matrix, we get the resultant algebraic equations in term of the transfer matrix from which the reflection and transmission coefficients can be calculated. The amplitude ratios and further the energy flux ratios of various waves are evaluated numerically. The numerical results are shown graphically and are validated by the energy conservation law. Based on these numerical results, the influences of two characteristic lengths of microstructure and the flexoelectric coefficients on the wave propagation are discussed.