Abstract
In this work, several experiments were carried out to investigate the effect of axial compressive preloads on the torsional buckling behaviors of superelastic shape memory alloy (SMA) columns. During the torsional loading and successive unloading controlled by the Instron torsion tester, the axial preload assembly adds a constant axial compression to the column. Simultaneously, the axial expansion/contraction and the lateral deflection of the column were measured using a laser sensor and a gap sensor. It was found that the critical torque decreases in proportion to the increase of axial compression. In addition, the same experiments were conducted using SUS304 columns for comparison.
