Active Control of NITINOL-Reinforced Structural Composites.

摘要

The rapidly growing technology of the SHAPE MEMORY NICKEL-TITANIUM ALLOY (NITINOL) is utilized to develop SMART composite materials that are capable of adapting intelligently to internal and external excitations. The NITINOL fibers are embedded into the composite matrix, at optimal locations and orientations, to sense and control the static and dynamic characteristics of the resulting SMART composite. With such built-in self-inspecting and controlling capabilities, the performance of the SMART composite can be optimized and tailored, in real time, to match changes in the operating conditions. Emphasis has been placed on controlling the static, dynamic and thermal characteristics of anisotropic NITINOL-reinforced beams. Furthermore, the sensing capabilities of the NITINOL fibers are investigated by using them as distributed strain gages to monitor the physical and modal displacements of NITINOL-reinforced composites. Finite element models are developed to predict structural stability and the static, dynamic and thermal behavior of NITINOL-reinforced composite beams. The theoretical predictions of these models are validated experimentally.