Smart materials spur additional design possibilities.
Temperature, stress, or a magnetic field can make a smart material change its shape, strength, and/or stiffness. That means a smart material can move without needing a motor or hydraulics. Shape memory alloys and polymers currently commercially available include NiTi (nickel titanium) and CuAlZn (copper aluminum zinc). These smart materials offer high stiffness?up to 270 MPa (39.2 ksi)?and strain recoverability up to 8%. In short, smart materials can be induced to change shape and induced to return to their original shape.
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