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Material Characterization Of Nitinol Wires For The Design Of Actuation Systems, Sean P. Kennedy

Master's Theses

A series of tests were performed on nickel-titanium alloy wire, also known as nitinol, to determine the plausibility of designing an actuator using this wire as the method of actuation. These tests have been designed to fully characterize how the wire behaves under steady state and transient conditions allowing for a specific wire selection to be made given known actuator specifications which will result in an efficient design. The wire transient data can be used to design a controller which reduces the actuation time. The research done for the overall project covers a wide scope including wire hysteresis, nitinol transition …