Advisory Committee Chair
Douglas H Ross
Advisory Committee Members
Dalton S Nelson
Peter M Walsh
Document Type
Thesis
Date of Award
2018
Degree Name by School
Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering (MSME) School of Engineering
Abstract
The type of actuator studied in this paper is a joule heated shape memory alloy (SMA) thermal actuator. The electrical connections of the actuator electrically partition the SMA in a binary fashion with the section either fully actuated or not. This method creates a digital actuator rather than an analog actuator. Heat from an energized partitioned section will conduct to adjacent partition sections which may partially activate the adjacent partitioned sections. The connections will act as heat sinks to mitigate this effect. The thermal SMA actuator is referred to as a Diginol actuator. This paper includes the thermal analysis of the SMA wire both with and without connections. The goal was to create tools and a method to determine an optimal connection size.
Recommended Citation
Balfour, Lloyd D. Jr, "Preliminary Thermal And Stress Analysis Of An Electrical Connection Acting As A Thermal Dam On A Nitinol Wire" (2018). All ETDs from UAB. 1095.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/etd-collection/1095