RESUMO
This work was carried out within the context of an R&D project on morphable polymer matrix composites (PMC), actuated by shape memory alloys (SMA), to be used for active aerodynamic systems in automotives. Critical issues for SMA-polymer integration are analyzed that are mostly related to the limited strength of metal-polymer interfaces. To this aim, materials with suitable thermo-mechanical properties were first selected to avoid premature activation of SMA elements during polymer setting as well as to avoid polymer damage during thermal activation of SMAs. Nonstandard samples were manufactured for both static and fatigue pullout tests under thermo-mechanical loading, which are made of SMA wires embedded in cylindrical resin blocks. Fully coupled thermo-mechanical simulations, including a special constitutive model for SMAs, were also carried out to analyze the stress and temperature distribution in the SMA-polymer samples as obtained from the application of both mechanical loads and thermal activation of the SMA wires. The results highlighted the severe effects of SMA thermal activation on adhesion strength due to the large recovery forces and to the temperature increase at the metal-polymer interface. Samples exhibit a nominal pullout stress of around 940 MPa under static mechanical load, and a marked reduction to 280 MPa was captured under simultaneous application of thermal and mechanical loads. Furthermore, fatigue run-out of 5000 cycles was achieved, under the combination of thermal activation and mechanical loads, at a nominal stress of around 200 MPa. These results represent the main design limitations of SMA/PMC systems in terms of maximum allowable stresses during both static and cyclic actuation.
RESUMO
Temperature dependent fracture properties of NiTi-based Shape Memory Alloys (SMAs), within the pseudoelastic regime, were analyzed. In particular, the effective Stress Intensity Factor (SIF) was estimated, at different values of the testing temperature, by a fitting of the William's expansion series, based on Digital Image Correlation (DIC) measurements. It was found that temperature plays an important role on SIF and on critical fast fracture conditions. As a consequence, Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) approaches are not suitable to predict fracture properties of SMAs, as they do not consider the effects of temperature. On the contrary, good agreements between DIC results and the predictions of an ad-hoc analytical model were observed. In fact, the model takes into account the whole thermo mechanical loading condition, including both mechanical load and temperature. Results revealed that crack tip stress-induced transformations do not represent a toughening effect and this is a completely novel result within the SMA community. Furthremore, it was demonstrated that the analytical model can be actually used to define a temperature independent fracture toughness parameter. Therefore, a new approach is proposed, based on the analytical model, where both mechanical load and temperature are considered as loading parameters in SIF computation.
