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 mat erials. These properties are then used to evaluate the dynamic charact eristics of a structure (modal parameters) using finite elements. A la minate level procedure is used to evaluate the complex bending stiffne sses of CuZnAl fiber reinforced composites. The modal strain energy fi nite element method is implemented to calculate the modal parameters o f composite structures with different geometries and boundary conditio ns. Calculated results are compared to those obtained by experimental modal analysis. The study outlines the relatively good agreement of na tural frequencies and the difficulties encountered in evaluating dampi ng in these types of composites at both the experimental (modal analys is) as well as the numerical (finite element) levels.