R. Chauhan, P. Maheshwari, V. Singh, Punjab Engg. College, Chandigarh, India
Shape memory alloys are materials, which undergo a solid-state reversible phase transformation, on stress/ temperature change.
These alloys are currently used in many critical- medical, aerospace applications; thus, their importance has been limited to high cost infrastructure projects.
The current theoretical work would study the viability of these alloys for commercial applications, or so to say " introduce them to the market ", with their cost reducing properties.
Ag-Au SMA wedding rings, stylish coat-dress for easy fit, reduction in number of gears in an automobile, ‘shape changing key’, and safety equipment has been studied and their economics observed. Different SMAs are used for different applications Cu-Al-Ni SMAs are used for high temperature applications; Ni-Ti has very low hysterisis stress.
Another important application would be studied, that of ‘self folding pins’, which have the potential to be equivalent to a shape pin. All these important applications would be introduced and their feasibility studied.
The current theoretical work is based on the applications of SMAs on a commercial basis.
These alloys have been in use for major military and medical applications where costs incurred are very high and the utilization is more than critical. Use of Nitinol and ternary shape memory alloys in the manufacture of high tech watches , foldable pins, gears of automobiles , wedding rings etc has been observed. The feasibility of these applications have also been looked upon, like economics, durability and criterion for better sale. Thus,
this is the objective of the current study.
