Deformation of Heterogeneous Adaptive Composite

Abstract

The superelastic deformation of an adaptive layer composite containing a shape memory alloy as an active component is considered in this paper. It is shown that the intrinsic instability of superelastic deformation can be suppressed in such kind of composite. The stability analysis of superelastic deformation allows one to formulate design principles of adaptive composites with controlled stress-strain hysteresis. The analysis of composite with sufficiently different elastic moduli of passive and active layers is a necessary step for using adaptive composites in applications which require a large reversible superelastic deformation.