Improving the damping behavior of fiber-reinforced polymer composites with embedded superelastic shape memory alloys (SMA)

One-way shape memory alloy wires exhibiting super elastic properties are capable of generating high recovery stresses under constrained conditions upon external mechanical loading. In the present work, the damping response of hybrid composite materials enhanced with super-elastic NiTi alloy wires is examined. The studied system consisted of an aramid reinforced epoxy resin composite in which NiTi wires have been embedded. By conducting damping measurements it was found that the addition of Ni-Ti wires into the aramid/epoxy composite leads to a significant modification of its damping which depends strongly on wire volume fraction. This paves the way for the design of a new class of hybrid materials that combine the stiffness and strength of reinforcing fibers with the increased damping tuning capability offered by the NiTi wires.