Shape memory materials have been known for many years to possess the unique ability of memorising their shape at some temperature. If these materials are pre-strained into the plastic range, they tend to recover their original un-strained shapes via phase transformation when subjected to heat stimulation. In recent years, this shape memory effect (SME) or strain recovery capability has been explored in aerospace structures for actuating the real-time movement of structural components. Among all the shape memory materials, the nickel-titanium based shape memory alloy (SMA) has by far received the most attention because of its high recovery capabilities. Since SMAs are usually drawn into the form of wires, they are particularly suitable for being integrated into fibre-reinforced composite structures. These integrated composite structures with SMA wires are thus called smart adaptive structures. To achieve the SME, these wires are normally embedded in the host composite structures. In returning to their unstrained shape upon heat application, they tend to exert internal stresses on the host composite structures in which they are embedded. This action could result in a controlled change in shape of the structural components. Although there has been a significant amount of research dedicated to characterising and modelling the SME of SMA wires, little experimental work had been done to offer an in-depth understanding of the mechanical behaviour of these smart adaptive polymeric composite structures. This project examined the deflection and shape change of carbon/epoxy and glass/epoxy cantilever beams through heating and cooling of internal nitinol SMA wires/strips. The heat damage mechanism and cyclic behaviour are major factors in the operation of such a system and need to be clearly understood in order to develop and gain confidence for the possible implementation of future smart actuating systems. Therefore, the objectives of the proposed research were to investigate (i) effect of embedding SMA, wires on mechanical properties of host composite, (ii) assessment of single-cycle and multiple-cycle actuation performance of smart beams, and (iii) thermal effects of excessive heat on the surrounding composite matrix.

This study is concerned with the design and development of a novel wing for UAVs that morphs seamlessly without the use of complex hydraulics, servo motors and controllers. The selected novel design is characterized by a high degree of flight adaptability and improved performance with a limited added weight. These characteristics were attained through the use of shape memory actuators in an antagonistic fashion. Unlike compliant actuators, the antagonistic setup requires the thermal energy to deform the wing but not to maintain its deformed shape. Structural analysis based upon safety factors specified by FAR23 standards and aerodynamic analysis using FLUENT were conducted on the novel design to validate its suitability as a viable wing for UAVs. In addition, thermal conditioning of the shape memory actuators was conducted using a specially designed programmable controller. This thesis does not concern itself with the design of a skin that accommodates the shape changes.

This study is concerned with the design and development of a novel wing for UAVs that morphs seamlessly without the use of complex hydraulics, servo motors and controllers. The selected novel design is characterized by a high degree of flight adaptability and improved performance with a limited added weight. These characteristics were attained through the use of shape memory actuators in an antagonistic fashion. Unlike compliant actuators, the antagonistic setup requires the thermal energy to deform the wing but not to maintain its deformed shape. Structural analysis based upon safety factors specified by FAR23 standards and aerodynamic analysis using FLUENT were conducted on the novel design to validate its suitability as a viable wing for UAVs. In addition, thermal conditioning of the shape memory actuators was conducted using a specially designed programmable controller. This thesis does not concern itself with the design of a skin that accommodates the shape changes.

SMA belongs to a class of so-called “smart materials” which possess properties that can be controlled by application of various types of stimuli – stress, temperature, electric field or magnetic field. In particular, SMA is a smart material which undergoes a temperature- or stress-dependent phase transformation giving it the property of remembering its original shape. Once deformed (up to a certain recoverable strain), SMA returns to its original shape upon heating. In this thesis, a study of SMA models and techniques to improve the performance of SMA actuators was carried out. In general, an SMA model is required for 3 main purposes: simulation, analysis and for model-based hysteresis compensation. In this work, the reduced-order form of John Shaw’s partial-differential equation model is chosen for implementation and simulation. The reduced-order form is used because its simpler structure makes it more useful for real-time control applications. The parameters were estimated for the John Shaw model followed by its implementation in MATLAB. From the view of control applications, a limitation of the John Shaw model is the inability to reproduce the so-called ‘minor loop behavior’ which is observed when the material is subject to cycling resulting in incomplete phase transformations. Modeling minor loop behavior is particularly important in closed-loop strain (or position) control applications since achieving a specific target strain between the two (load-dependent) extremes requires partial phase transformation. Herein, the governing equations are modified to include minor loop behavior. This behavior was tested using damped signals which would be expected to trigger minor loops in the actual SMA and reasonable match is observed from the simulations. The use of SMA actuators is limited by the relatively slow response time compared to other smart materials. The conventional current saturation (CS) scheme limits the maximum current into the wire at the manufacturer-specified safe current values in order to protect the wire from damage due to overheating. However, this is a conservative limit on the maximum current and hence, the response is artificially slowed. In order to improve the response time, a model-based temperature saturation (MBTS) scheme was developed, in which current is saturated based on model-predicted temperature. The MBTS scheme allows much higher currents to be applied to the wire, while ensuring that the wire is not damaged. Based on simulations using the reduced-order John Shaw model, it is observed that better tracking occurs using the MBTS scheme in the actuation scheme as compared to the CS scheme.

Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs) have been demonstrated to be effective actuator elements in a wide range of applications, such as robotics, medicine, aerospace and automotive. Enabled by the unique thermo-mechanical properties of SMAs, these actuators offer the advantages of light weight, high power-to-weight ratio and a simple actuation mechanism compared to traditional actuator types. At the same time, the widespread adoption of the SMA actuator remains elusive as its low power efficiency and complex hysteretic behaviour often render it an impractical means of actuation. These actuators also exhibit a slow response speed and their response is highly sensitive to changes in the external environment, namely ambient temperature and mechanical stress, thus complicating their control. Position, force or temperature sensors may be used to facilitate feedback control, but at the cost of increasing the overall size and complexity of the system. The difficulties caused by the hysteretic behaviour can be largely avoided when SMA wires are used as on-off actuators, making SMAs well suited for such applications. However, they may still be subject to a wide range of dynamic operating conditions that would impact their actuation time, and achieving a consistent actuation time is often highly desirable. This thesis presents the synthesis of a nitinol SMA actuator control system which uses electrical resistance feedback to enable a fast response speed and robustness to disturbances in the external environment. A study of the resistance behaviour of SMAs is discussed first. The design of an adaptive controller and the experimental evaluation of its performance are described in detail next. The objective of the SMA actuator control system is to achieve a consistent and fast actuation time throughout the range of operating ambient temperature and stress. The control system is implemented experimentally and shown to be quite successful.

Im Legierungssytem Ni-Mn-Ga tritt bei Zusammensetzungen nahe der stöchiometrischen Zusammensetzung Ni2MnGa der magnetische Formgedächtniseffekt auf. Darunter versteht man die Dehnung durch Bewegung von Zwillingsgrenzen im Magnetfeld. Einkristalle aus Ni-Mn-Ga mit einer tetragonalen 5M-Martensitstruktur zeigen magnetisch erzeugbare Dehnungen von bis zu 6 %. Diese großen Dehnungen verbunden mit der schnellen Schaltfrequenz von Magnetfeldern machen den Effekt interessant für technische Anwendungen z. B. als Aktoren. Derartige Einkristalle sind schwierig und teuer herzustellen, weshalb für technische Anwendung Polykristalle von Interesse sind. Diese lassen sich im Allgemeinen leichter und preiswerter herstellen. Um den magnetischen Formgedächtniseffekt in Polykristalle einzustellen, werden grobkörnige, texturierte Proben mittels des Verfahrens der gerichteten Erstarrung hergestellt. Die Gefügeuntersuchungen erfolgen mit metallographischen Schliffen und die Kornorientierungen werden mit der EBSD-Technik bestimmt. Um das Gefüge zu vergröbern, werden Glühungen nach einer aufgebrachten Warmverformung untersucht. Zur Verringerung der für die Bewegung der Zwillingsgrenzen notwendigen Spannung (Zwillingsspannung) werden die Proben im Druckversuch mechanisch trainiert. Dabei kann die Zwillingsspannung teilweise unter die magnetisch erzeugbare Spannung auf die Zwillingsgrenzen (Magnetospannung) abgesenkt werden. Eine weitere Absenkung der Zwillingsspannung wird durch eine plattenförmige Probengeometrie mit Dicken im Bereich der Korndurchmesser erreicht. An derartigen Proben wird magnetisch rückstellbare freie Dehnung durch Zwillingsgrenzenbewegung erzielt.

No description available.

Shape memory polymer (SMP) materials have the ability to remain in a deformed state and then recover their initial/cast shape. This property has significant potential in many different fields, including aerospace and bio-medical, in which a shape change is desirable and actuation may not be required. SMP materials have been made into nano-reinforced composites and also foamed to improve desired properties for specific applications. SMP foams offer two clear advantages over non-foam SMP materials in applications for the biomedical and aerospace fields. The key advantages are lower density and significant compressibility. The significance of this is that components made out of SMP foam are lighter than traditional SMP materials, more compressible and exhibit minimal transverse change during deformation and shape recovery. This increases the performance and efficiency of devices using SMP foam material. The need for a set of design criteria, models, and limits for the use of shape memory polymer foams was proposed. The effect of temperature and strain on the mechanical behavior, compression, tensile, cyclic compression, constrained recovery and free strain recovery of the material was used to determine the operational limits of the material. Next, the damage mechanism and viscoelastic effects in compressive cycling were determined through further mechanical testing and with the incorporation of three dimensional structure mapping via micro-CT scanning. The influence of microstructure was determined by testing the basic thermomechanical, viscoelastic and shape recovery behavior of foams with relative densities of 20, 30 and 40 percent. A similar suite of tests was then performed on the base epoxy material to generate the material properties necessary to fit constitutive equations to enable computational modeling. This data was then combined with three dimensional microstructures generated from micro-CT scans to develop material models for shape memory foams. These models were then validated by comparing model results to the experimental results under similar conditions.

The past twenty years have seen the successful characterization and computational modeling efforts by the smart materials community to better understand the Shape Memory Alloy (SMA). Commercially available numerical analysis tools, coupled with powerful constitutive models, have been shown to be highly accurate for predicting the response of these materials when subjected to predetermined loading conditions. This thesis acknowledges the development of such an established analysis framework and proposes an expanded design framework that is capable of accounting for the complex coupling behavior between SMA components and the surrounding assembly or system. In order to capture these effects, additional analysis tools are implemented in addition to the standard use of the non-linear finite element analysis (FEA) solver and a full, robust SMA constitutive model coded as a custom user-defined material subroutine (UMAT). These additional tools include a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) solver, a cosimulation module that allows separate FEA and CFD solvers to iteratively analyze fluid-structure interaction (FSI) and conjugate heat transfer (CHT) problems, and the addition of the latent heat term to the heat equations in the UMAT to fully account for transient thermomechanical coupling. Procedures for optimizing SMA component and assembly designs through iterative analysis are also introduced at the highest level. These techniques are implemented using commercially available simulation process management and scripting tools. The expanded framework is demonstrated on example engineering problems that are motivated by real morphing structure applications, namely the Boeing Variable Geometry Chevron (VGC) and the NASA Shape Memory Alloy Hybrid Composite (SMAHC) chevron. Three different studies are conducted on these applications, focusing on component-, assembly-, and system-level analysis, each of which may necessitate accounting for certain coupling interactions between thermal, mechanical, and fluid fields. Output analysis data from each of the three models are validated against experimental data, where available. It is shown that the expanded design framework can account for the additional coupling effects at each analysis level, while providing an efficient and accurate alternative to the cost- and time-expensive legacy design-build-test methods that are still used today to engineer SMA actuated morphing aerostructures.

Tez (Yüksek Lisans) - Süleyman Demirel Üniversitesi, Fen Bilimleri Enstitüsü, Fizik Anabilim Dalı, 2007. / Bibliyografya var.