Design of Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) Actuators

Ashwin Rao · A. R. Srinivasa · J. N. Reddy

May 2015 · Springer

About this ebook

This short monograph presents an analysis and design methodology for shape memory alloy (SMA) components such as wires, beams, and springs for different applications. The solid-solid, diffusionless phase transformations in thermally responsive SMA allows them to demonstrate unique characteristics like superelasticity and shape memory effects. The combined sensing and actuating capabilities of such materials allows them to provide a system level response by combining multiple functions in a single material system. In SMA, the combined mechanical and thermal loading effects influence the functionality of such materials.

The aim of this book is to make the analysis of these materials accessible to designers by developing a "strength of materials" approach to the analysis and design of such SMA components inspired from their various applications with a review of various factors influencing the design process for such materials.

About the author

Dr Reddy is a Distinguished Professor and inaugural holder of the Oscar S. Wyatt Endowed Chair in Mechanical Engineering at Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas. Dr Reddy has been a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin, a Research Scientist for Lockheed Missiles and Space Company, and Professor of Engineering at the University of Oklahoma from 1975 to 1980, at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University from 1980 to 1992, and now at Texas A&M University since 1992. Dr Reddy is the author of more than 300 journal papers and 14 textbooks on theoretical formulations and finite-element analysis of problems in solid and structural mechanics (plates and shells), composite materials, computational fluid dynamics, numerical heat transfer, and applied mathematics. He is the first recipient of the University of Oklahoma College of Engineering's Award for Outstanding Faculty Achievement in Research, the 1984 Walter L. Huber Civil Engineering Research Prize of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the 1985 Alumni Research Award at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, and the 1992 Worcester Reed Warner Medal and 1995 Charles Russ Richards Memorial Award of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). Dr Reddy is a Fellow of the American Academy of Mechanics (AAM), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the ASME, the American Society of Composites (ASC), the International Association of Computational Mechanics (IACM), the U.S. Association of Computational Mechanics (USACM), the Aeronautical Society of India (ASI), and the American Society of Composite Materials. Dr Reddy serves on the editorial boards of about two-dozen journals, including Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics (ASME), International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering, and International Journal for Numerical Methods in Fluids. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Mechanics of Advanced Materials and Structures and serves as one of the chief editors of Internatio