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SMART MATERIALS
INTRODUCTION:
Materials that can change one or more of its properties in response to an external
stimulus are called smart materials.

For example, the shape of the material will change in response to different
temperature or application of electrical charge or presence of magnetic field.

HISTORY:
Most of smart materials have been discovered around 55 years ago, but they were not
exploited to get the benefits which they possess.

TYPES OF SMART MATERIALS

 PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIALS

 SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY

 MAGNETOSTRICTIVE MATERIALS

 pH-SENSITIVE POLYMERS

 HALOCHROMIC MATERIALS

 PHOTO MECHANICAL MATERIALS

 SELF-HEALING MATERIALS

PIEZOELECTRIC MATERIALS
Piezoelectric materials are materials that produce an electric current when they are placed
under mechanical stress. The piezoelectric process is also reversible, so if you apply an
electric current to these materials, they will actually change shape slightly (a maximum of
4%).

Example: Quartz; Aluminum Nitride; Barium Titanate; Gallium

Phosphate; Lead
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There are several materials that we have known for some time that posses piezoelectric
properties, including bone, proteins, crystals (e.g. quartz) and ceramics (e.g. lead zirconate
titanate).
Piezoelectricity is an exciting field of Nanotechnology, and there are already tests being run
outside labs to try and harness this form of power. In many places including Japan’s subway,
dance floors across the world and football stadiums, engineers have already put in place
piezoelectric floors that use the high volume of footfall to decrease their demand for
electricity from the grid. With a bit of luck in the years to come, piezoelectricity will become
another weapon which we can use to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and to derive the
energy we need.
SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY
A shape-memory alloy is an alloy that can be deformed when cold but returns to its
pre-deformed ("remembered") shape when heated. It may also be called memory
metal, memory alloy, smart metal, smart alloy, or muscle wire

The two most prevalent shape-memory alloys are copper-aluminium-nickel and nickel-

titanium (NiTi), but SMAs can also be created by alloying zinc, copper, gold and iron.
Although iron-based and copper-based SMAs, such as Fe-Mn-Si, Cu-Zn-Al and Cu-Al-Ni,
are commercially available and cheaper than NiTi, NiTi-based SMAs are preferable for most
applications due to their stability and practicability and superior thermo-mechanic
performance. SMAs can exist in two different phases, with three different crystal structures
(i.e. twinned martensite, detwinned martensite and austenite) and six possible
transformations.
Shape-memory alloys have different shape-memory effects. Two common effects are one-
way and two-way shape memory. A schematic of the effects is shown below.
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The procedures are very similar: starting from martensite (a), adding a reversible deformation
for the one-way effect or severe deformation with an irreversible amount for the two-way (b),
heating the sample (c) and cooling it again (d)

One-way memory effect When a shape-memory alloy is in its cold state (below As), the
metal can be bent or stretched and will hold those shapes until heated above the transition
temperature. Upon heating, the shape changes to its original. When the metal cools again, it
will retain the shape, until deformed again.
With the one-way effect, cooling from high temperatures does not cause a macroscopic shape
change. A deformation is necessary to create the low-temperature shape. On heating,
transformation starts at As and is completed at Af (typically 2 to 20 °C or hotter, depending on
the alloy or the loading conditions). As is determined by the alloy type and composition and
can vary between −150 °C and 200 °C.

Two-way memory effect The two-way shape-memory effect is the effect that the
material remembers two different shapes: one at low temperatures, and one at the high-
temperature shape. A material that shows a shape-memory effect during both heating and
cooling is said to have two-way shape memory. This can also be obtained without the
application of an external force (intrinsic two-way effect). The reason the material behaves so
differently in these situations lies in training. Training implies that a shape memory can
"learn" to behave in a certain way. Under normal circumstances, a shape-memory alloy
"remembers" its low-temperature shape, but upon heating to recover the high-temperature
shape, immediately "forgets" the low-temperature shape. However, it can be "trained" to
"remember" to leave some reminders of the deformed low-temperature condition in the high-
temperature phases. There are several ways of doing this. A shaped, trained object heated
beyond a certain point will lose the two-way memory effect.

MAGNETOSTRICTIVE MATERIALS
These materials exhibit change in shape under the influence of magnetic field and also
exhibit change in their magnetization under the influence of mechanical stress.

Examples: Cobalt, Terfenol-D

The effect was first identified in 1842 by James Joule when observing a sample of iron.
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This effect causes energy loss due to frictional heating in susceptible ferromagnetic cores.
The effect is also responsible for the low-pitched humming sound that can be heard coming
from transformers, where oscillating AC currents produce a changing magnetic field.

Magnetostrictive materials can convert magnetic energy into kinetic energy, or the reverse,
and are used to build actuators and sensors. The property can be quantified by the
magnetostrictive coefficient, Λ, which may be positive or negative and is defined as the
fractional change in length as the magnetization of the material increases from zero to
the saturation value. The effect is responsible for the familiar "electric hum" which can be
heard near transformers and high power electrical devices.
Cobalt exhibits the largest room-temperature magnetostriction of a pure element at
60 microstrains. Among alloys, the highest known magnetostriction is exhibited by Terfenol-
D, (Ter for terbium, Fe for iron, NOL for Naval Ordnance Laboratory, and D
for dysprosium). Terfenol-D, TbxDy1−xFe2, exhibits about 2,000 microstrains in a field of 160
kA/m (2 kOe) at room temperature and is the most commonly used engineering
magnetostrictive material. Galfenol, FexGa1-x, and Alfenol, FexAl1-x, are newer alloys that
exhibit 200-400 microstrains at lower applied fields (~200 Oe) and have enhanced
mechanical properties from brittle Terfenol-D. Both of these alloys have <100> easy axes for
magnetostriction and demonstrate sufficient ductility for sensor and actuator applications.

pH SENSITIVE POLYMERS

pH sensitive polymers are materials that change in volume when the pH of the
surrounding medium changes.
Or
pH sensitive or pH responsive polymers are materials which will respond to the changes in
the pH of the surrounding medium by varying their dimensions. Materials may swell,
collapse, or change depending on the pH of their environment. 

There are two kinds of pH sensitive materials:

Acidic group (-COOH, -SO3H)

Basic group(-NH2)

This behavior is exhibited due to the presence of certain functional groups in the polymer
chain. pH-sensitive materials can be either acidic or basic, responding to either basic or acidic
pH values. These polymers can be designed with much different architecture for different
applications. Key uses of pH sensitive polymers are controlled drug delivery
systems, biomimetics, micromechanical systems, separation processes, and surface
functionalization.
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HALOCHROMIC MATERIALS
A halochromic material is a material which changes color when pH changes occur.
The term ‘chromic’ is defined as materials that can change colour reversibly with the
presence of a factor. In this case, the factor is pH. The pH indicators have this property.
Halochromic substances are suited for use in environments where pH changes occur
frequently, or places where changes in pH are extreme. Halochromic substances detect
alterations in the acidity of substances, like detection of corrosion in metals.
Halochromic substances may be used as indicators to determine the pH of solutions of
unknown pH. The colour obtained is compared with the colour obtained when the indicator is
mixed with solutions of known pH. The pH of the unknown solution can then be estimated.
Obvious disadvantages of this method include its dependency on the colour sensitivity of the
human eye, and that unknown solutions that are already coloured cannot be used.
The colour change of halochromic substances occur when the chemical binds to existing
hydrogen and hydroxide ions in solution. Such bonds result in changes in the conjugated
systems of the molecule, or the range of electron flow. This alters the wavelength of light
absorbed, which in turn results in a visible change of colour. Halochromic substances do not
display a full range of colour for a full range of pH because, after certain acidities, the
conjugated system will not change. The various shades result from different concentrations of
halochromic molecules with different conjugated systems.
These materials are commonly used materials that change their colour as a result of changing
pH or say acidity.

Halochromic substances may be used as indicators to determine the pH of solutions of

unknown pH

Ex:  pH indicators

PHOTOMECHANICAL MATERIALS
The materials which change their shape when exposed to light are called
photomechanical materials
These materials change their shape when they are exposed to light.
The photomechanical effect was first documented by ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL in
1880.
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The most common mechanism of photomechanical effect is light-induced heating.

Photomechanical materials may be considered smart materials due to their natural change
implemented by external factors.

The above figure shows change of material property on application of light. The changes are
as shown 1) Expansion 2) Bending or Coiling 3) Twisting.

These materials are used as sensors

SELF-HEALING MARETIALS
Self-healing materials are artificial or synthetically-created substances which have
the built-in ability to automatically repair damages to themselves without any external
diagnosis of the problem or human intervention. Generally, materials will degrade over time
due to fatigue, environmental conditions, or damage incurred during operation. Cracks and
other types of damage on a microscopic level have been shown to change thermal, electrical,
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and acoustical properties of materials, and the propagation of cracks can lead to

eventual failure of the material. In general, cracks are hard to detect at an early stage, and
manual intervention is required for periodic inspections and repairs. In contrast, self-healing
materials counter degradation through the initiation of a repair mechanism which responds to
the micro-damage. Some self-healing materials are classed as smart structures, and can adapt
to various environmental conditions according to their sensing and actuation properties.

Although the most

common types of self-healing materials are polymers or elastomers, self-healing covers all
classes of materials, including metals, ceramics, and cementitious materials. Healing
mechanisms vary from an instrinsic repair of the material to the addition of a repair agent
contained in a microscopic vessel. For a material to be strictly defined as autonomously self-
healing, it is necessary that the healing process occurs without human intervention. Self-
healing polymers may, however, activate in response to an external stimulus (light,
temperature change, etc.) to initiate the healing processes.
A material which can intrinsically correct damage caused by normal usage could prevent
costs incurred by material failure and lower costs of a number of different industrial
processes through longer part lifetime, and reduction of inefficiency caused by degradation
over time.
When exposed for long times to high temperatures and moderate stresses, metals exhibit
premature and low-ductility creep fracture, arising from the formation and growth of cavities.
Those defects coalesce into cracks which ultimately cause macroscopic failure. Self-healing
of early stage damage is thus a promising new approach to extend the lifetime of the metallic
components. In metals, self-healing is intrinsically more difficult to achieve than in most
other material classes, due to their high melting point and, as a result, low atom mobility.
Generally, defects in the metals are healed by the formation of precipitates at the defect sites
that immobilize further crack growth. Improved creep and fatigue properties have been
reported for underaged aluminium alloys compared to the peak hardening Al alloys, which is
due to the heterogeneous precipitation at the crack tip and its plastic zone. The first attempts
to heal creep damage in steels were focused on the dynamic precipitation of either Cu or BN
at the creep-cavity surface. Cu precipitation has only a weak preference for deformation-
induced defects as a large fraction of spherical Cu precipitates is simultaneously formed with
the matrix. Recently, gold atoms were recognized as a highly efficient healing agents in Fe-
based alloys. A defect-induced mechanism is indicated for the Au precipitation, i.e. the Au
solute remains dissolved until defects are formed. Autonomous repair of high-temperature
creep damage was reported by alloying with a small amount of Au. Healing agents
selectively precipitate at the free surface of a creep cavity, resulting in pore filling. For the
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lower stress levels up to 80% filling of the creep cavities with Au precipitates is
achieved resulting in a substantial increase in creep life time. Work to translate the concept of
creep damage healing in simple binary or ternary model systems to real multicomponent
creep steels is ongoing.
Some materials have ability to heal after being wounded. Self-healing materials have the
natural ability to repair damage due to abnormal usage and so increase the material's useful
lifetime.
Example:- polymers, ceramics 12Terminator

PROPERTIES
 Sensing materials and devices
 Actuation materials and devices
 Control devices and techniques
 Self-detection, self-diagnostic
 Self-corrective, self-controlled, self-healing
 Shock-absorbers, damage arrest

APPLICATIONS
Smart materials got vast applications in Aerospace, Mass transit, Marine, Automotive,
Computers and other electronic devices, Consumer goods applications, Civil engineering,
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Medical equipment applications, Rotating machinery applications. The health and beauty
industry is also taking advantage of these innovations, which range from drug-releasing
medical textiles, to fabric with moisturizer, perfume, and anti-aging properties. Many smart
clothing, wearable technology, and wearable computing projects involve the use of e-textiles.
Intelligent Structures of Architecture and Civil Engineering are been a subject to reveal and
unlock the ancient and magnificent architecture by human on the redesigning the earth's
geography. The research on archeological technology of Structural engineering, advanced
innovations in Civil Engineering, current applied principles of geotechnical,
structural, environmental, transportation and construction engineering, sea defense systems
against raising sea levels, under water-on water constructions, floating and green cities
architecture, case study on Structural & Civil Engineering.

 Archeological technology of structural engineering

 Advanced innovations in civil engineering
 Sea defense systems against raising sea levels
 Under water - on water constructions
 Floating and green cities architecture
 Case study on structural and civil engineering

PROS
 Bio-compatibility

 Simplicity

 Compactness
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 Safety mechanism

 Good mechanical properties

CONS
 More expensive

 Low energy efficiency

 Complex control

 Limited bandwidth

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