SMA for Dampers in Civil Engineering

Abstract

The necessary physical properties for CuAlBe and, also tentatively, for NiTi alloys are analyzed at mesoscopic scale via static and dynamic contributions. The long time scale of the civil engineering (more than 10 or 20 years) requires analysis of the diffusion effects acting on microscopic scales. Simplified models for CuAlBe and NiTi dampers are built inside the ANSYS software scheme ensuring faster simulation for a three arch (or portico) in a family house. The dynamic simulation using accelerations of actual quakes (i.e., El Centro) shows that the SMA dampers reduce the amplitude of free oscillations by, at least, a factor two.