Development and evaluation of thermo-mechanical behaviour of shape memory alloy based adaptive composite structure

Abstract

Shape memory alloys (SMAs) are a type of smart materials which have unique feature diffusion less solid-to-solid phase transformation from austenite to martensite and vice versa. Composite structures embedded with SMAs have many benefits like actuation, vibration control, and damping, sensing and self-healing. However, despite substantial research in this area, a comparable adoption of SMA composites by industry has not yet been realized. Because of the material complexity that includes strong thermomechanical coupling, large inelastic deformations, and variable thermoplastic properties. SMAs are becoming increasingly accepted in engineering applications, a similar trend for SMA composites is expected in aerospace, automotive, and energy conversion and storage related applications. The present study consists of two main parts; the first part is the manufacturing process while the second part consists of the investigation of thermo-mechanical behaviour and mechanical property of manufactured composite. The thermomechanical behaviour of composites with different diameter wire and number of wires has been investigated. Also, multicycle thermomechanical behaviour has been studied for about 100 cycles.