Vibration characteristics of SMA composite beams with different boundary conditions

Recently, the development of shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators, in the forms of wire, thin film and stent have been found increasingly in the fields of materials science and smart structures and engineering. The increase in attraction for using these materials is due to their many unique materials, mechanical, thermal and thermal-mechanical properties, which in turn, evolve their subsequent shape memory, pseudo-elasticity and super-elasticity properties. In this paper, a common type of SMA actuator, Nitinol wires, were embedded into advanced composite structures to modulate the structural dynamic responses, in terms of natural frequency and damping ratio by using its shape memory and pseudo-elastic properties. A simple theoretical model is introduced to estimate the natural frequency of the structures before and after actuating the embedded SMA wires. The damping ratios of different SMA composite beams were measured through experimental approaches. The natural frequencies changed slightly at a temperature above the austenite finish temperature of composite beams with embedded non-prestrained SMA wires. However, the increase of the natural frequencies of the beams with embedded prestrained SMA wires were found in both the theoretical prediction and experimental measurements. The damping ratios of SMA composite beams increased with increasing the temperature of the embedded wires with and without being pre-strained. Compressive and local failures of the beams with high wire content are a possible explanation.