Material and structural characterization of the dynamic behavior of shape memory alloy reinforced composites

The purpose of this article is to characterize elastic and dissipative properties of Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) fiber reinforced composite materials. These properties are then used to evaluate the dynamic characteristics of a structure (modal parameters) using finite elements. A laminate level procedure is used to evaluate the complex bending stiffnesses of CuZnAl fiber reinforced composites. The modal strain energy finite element method is implemented to calculate the modal parameters of composite structures with different geometries and boundary conditions. Calculated results are compared to those obtained by experimental modal analysis. The study outlines the relatively good agreement of natural frequencies and the difficulties encountered in evaluating damping in these types of composites at both the experimental (modal analysis) as well as the numerical (finite element) levels.