Reciprocating Bending Deformation and Mechanical Response of Shape-control Plate Using NiTi Shape Memory Alloy Wire

This study deals with deformation and mechanical response of a shape-control plate, which consists of an aluminum alloy plate and a pre-strained NiTi shape memory alloy (SMA) wire. The shape-control plate exhibits reciprocating bending deformation by heating and cooling. Bending deformation tests of the plate are carried out by electric heating and natural cooling of the SMA wire, and then mechanical response of the bent plate under electric heating is examined by three-point bending. The experimental results exhibit that the bending deformation of the plate is considerably stable over more than 2000 heating-cooling cycles, and that a load-deflection relation of the bent plate is almost linear. Furthermore, the bending deformation and mechanical response of the plate are analyzed by a simple beam theory for the aluminum alloy plate and Brinson’s one-dimensional constitutive model for the SMA wire. The numerical results describe well the deformation behavior and mechanical response of the shape-control plate observed in the experiments. The proposed numerical model can be useful in design and estimation of shape-control plates.