A structure based on a smart material and a PID control loop is presented in this paper. A glass fiber reinforced plastic material is instrumented with Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBG) and Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) actuators. The smart material and the smart structure are both successfully checked by being subjected to different operational conditions at the laboratory. Very good responses are obtaine...

Shape memory alloys (SMA) show a high ratio of work capacity per material volume. This makes the application of SMA especially useful in micron-sized systems. The development of robotic grippers is one important prerequisite for the successful automation of the assembly of micro systems. Therefore the SMA may also play a role, for example, as actuators in micron-sized grippers. This paper prese...

A nonlinear shell finite element formulation for shape memory alloy applications Edoardo Artioli (Roma Tor Vergata) In the last decades, the development of efficient computational models for the nonlinear analysis of structures made of shape memory alloys (SMA) has been one of the most important research activities. The shape memory alloys (SMA) represent one of the most interesting smart mater...

In this work, we model a thermoelectric shape memory alloy(SMA) actuator as part of a research effort to design high-force, high-frequency SMA actuators. Cyclic phase transformation in a SMA layer is achieved by alternately heatinglc6oling using the thermoelectric Peltier effect. The thermal and mechanical fields during phase transformation are, in general, highly coupled and the extent of this...

An open question is the underlying mechanisms for a recent discovered nanocomposite, which composed of shape memory alloy (SMA) matrix with embedded metallic nanowires (NWs), demonstrating novel mechanical properties, such as large quasi-linear elastic strain, low Young's modulus and high yield strength. We use finite element simulations to investigate the interplay between the superelasticity ...

The transformation behavior of an embedded shape memory alloy (SMA) ribbon was investigated experimentally and numerically. Single SMA ribbons (55% Ni, 45% Ti) were pre-strained to 1% and then embedded in a room-temperature-cured epoxy resin. The embedded ribbons were heated resistively to a temperature above the austenite start temperature to induce transformation. The development of displacem...

A miniature fiber optic endomicroscope with built-in dynamic focus scanning capability is developed for the first time for 3-D two-photon fluorescence (TPF) imaging of biological samples. Fast 2-D lateral beam scanning is realized by resonantly vibrating a double-clad fiber cantilever with a tubular piezoactuator. Slow axial scanning is achieved by moving the distal end of the imaging probe wit...

The main purpose of this paper is to study the solution behavior of the transient heat transfer problem for one-dimensional symmetric thermoelectric shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators. It is proved that for the transient cooling problem with constant electric current density of magnitude |J | there is a value J0 of |J | such that when |J | < J0, the temperature in SMA is always decreasing to it...

The stability of sandwich panels subjected to the simultaneous action of a uniform temperature and a uniaxial compression is considered. At elevated temperatures, the buckling load can be increased by using shape memory alloy (SMA) fibers in resin sleeves embedded within the core, at the midplane of the sandwich panel. The best results are achieved when the spacing of SMA fibers across the pane...

Several efforts were made over the years to control vibration of structural components made of composite materials. This paper consists of study on effect of using shape memory alloy (SMA) to increase the damping of glass fiber reinforced plastic (GFRP) composites. A comparative study between SMA and steel was made as reinforcement material in GFRP composites to enhance damping. Dimensions of e...