Smart Materials

What are smart materials?

• Smart materials are materials that

have one or more properties that can
be significantly altered in a controlled
fashion by external stimuli, such as
stress, temperature, moisture, pH,
electric or magnetic fields.
 What are the examples?

• Piezoelectric materials
• Shape memory alloys
• Magnetic shape memory alloys
• PH sensitive polymers
• Halochromic materials
• Chromogenic systems
 What are Piezoelectric
materials?
• Piezoelectric materials are materials that
produce a voltage when stress is applied.
Since this effect also applies in the reverse
manner, a voltage across the sample will
produce stress within the sample. Suitably
designed structures made from these
materials can therefore be made that bend,
expand or contract when a voltage is
applied.
• Buzzers are piezoelectric.
 What are shape memory
alloys?
• Shape memory alloys and shape
memory polymers are
thermoresponsive materials where
deformation can be induced and
recovered through temperature
changes.
 What are shape memory
alloys?
• An example is NiTinolTM (Nickel Titanium)
• Above its transformation temperature, Nitinol is
superelastic, able to withstand a large amount
of deformation when a load is applied and
return to its original shape when the load is
removed. Below its transformation temperature,
it displays the shape memory effect. When it is
deformed it will remain in that shape until
heated above its transformation temperature, at
which time it will return to its original shape.
 Application of SMA
• Nitinol is used in medicine for
stents: A collapsed stent can
be inserted into a vein and
heated (returning to its
original expanded shape)
helping to improve blood flow.
Also, as a replacement for
sutures where nitinol wire can
be weaved through two
structures then allowed to
transform into it's pre-formed
shape which should hold the
structures in place.
 Further reading of SMA
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shape_memory_alloy
 Magnetic SMA
• Magnetic Shape Memory alloys are materials that
change their shape in response to a significant
change in the magnetic field.
 PH sensitive polymers
• pH-sensitive polymers are materials which
swell/collapse when the pH of the surrounding
media changes.
• The sensor is prepared by entrapping within a
polymer matrix a pH sensitive dye that responds,
through visible colour changes (see next slide) to
spoilage volatile compounds that contribute to a
quantity known as Total Volatile Basic Nitrogen
(TVB-N).
 PH sensitive polymers
• The ‘REF’ sample is outside the package. The others
are all inside. www.dcu.ie/chemistry/asg/pacquita/
 Halochromic Materials
• Halochromic materials are commonly materials that
change their colour as a result of changing acidity.
One suggested application is for paints that can
change colour to indicate corrosion in the metal
underneath them.
 Chromogenic systems
• Chromogenic systems change colour in response to
electrical, optical or thermal changes. These include
electrochromic materials, which change their colour
or opacity on the application of a voltage (e.g.
liquid crystal displays), thermochromic materials
change in colour depending on their temperature,
and photochromic materials, which change colour in
response to light - for example, light sensitive
sunglasses that darken when exposed to bright
sunlight.
 Electrochromic
• Flip a switch and an
electrochromic window can
change from clear to fully
darkened or any level of tint
in-between.
• The action of an electric field
signals the change in the
window's optical and thermal
properties. Once the field is
reversed, the process is also
reversed. The windows
operate on a very low
voltage -- one to three volts
-- and only use energy to
change their condition, not to
maintain any particular state.
 Thermochromic
• Kettles that change colour and
signs that glow-in-the-dark are
two recent examples of products
becoming ‘smarter’ as a result of
new materials. Colour-changing
thermochromic pigments are
now routinely made as inks for
paper and fabrics – and
incorporated into injection
moulded plastics. A new type of
phosphorescent pigment,
capable of emitting light for up
to 10 hours, has opened up
entirely new design Warm Cool
opportunities for
instrumentation, low-level
lighting systems etc.

http://www.mutr.co.uk/catalog/index.php?cPath=79
 Photochromic
• Photochromism is the reversible transformation of colour upon
exposure to light. This phenomenon is illustrated in sun glasses.
 QTC
• Quantum Tunneling Composites (or QTCs) are composite materials of
metals and non-conducting elastomeric binder, used as pressure sensors.
• As the name implies, they operate using quantum tunneling: without
pressure, the conductive elements are too far apart to conduct
electricity; when pressure is applied, they move closer and electrons can
tunnel through the insulator. The effect is far more pronounced than
would be expected from classical (non-quantum) effects alone, as
classical electrical resistance is linear (proportional to distance), while
quantum tunneling is exponential with decreasing distance, allowing the
resistance to change by a factor of up to 1012 between pressured and
unpressured states.
• QTCs were discovered in 1996 and PeraTech Ltd was established to
investigate them further.
• http://www.mutr.co.uk/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=1144
QTC
QTC
Smart Grease

www.tep.co.uk