GUEST EDITORIAL: Selected Articles from SMST 2019: The International Conference on Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies (SMST)

摘要

The 2019 International Conference on Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies (SMST) was held on May 13-17, 2019 in the Bodenseeforum in Konstanz, Germany. This was the 18th SMST meeting since its founding in 1994, and the dedication to the leading and latest technical and scientific developments was ever more vibrant. Impressive figures include the conference's 436 attendees, 139 speakers, 25 participating countries, 22 exhibitors, 18 sessions, 11 symposia, 4 keynote speakers, and a one-day educational workshop, making this another successful SMST conference. The full program with extended abstracts can be found on the SMST 2019 website. In addition, every submission was carefully evaluated against the Shape Memory and Superelasticity journal criteria, and 17 papers were selected for publication as full-length articles in this special issue of the journal. This peer-reviewed collection highlights the extraordinary range of topics covered at the conference, encompassing basic research to device manufacturing and use, academia to industry, and superelastics to actuators, and is intended to convey the focus areas of the conference itself. The interests of the medical devices industry were dominated by predicting and enhancing fatigue resistance, verification of finite element analysis, and corrosion resistance. Actuator interests were centered on high temperature SMAs, including NiTiHf fracture toughness and processing, as well as exploring other less expensive, lighter and easier to hot work alternatives, such as NiTiZr alloys. Also presented were the lessons learned from a host of experimental aeronautic applications, and discussions of how these can be applied to future alloys and systems. This conference also brought to bear new theoretical and experimental approaches to better understanding the deformation and the transformation pathways in NiTibased alloys. New insights using phenomenological theory of martensitic transformations, ab initio calculations, and advanced experimental methods were brought forth, conceivably enabling design of next generation SMAs.