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Smart material

About: Smart material is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3704 publications have been published within this topic receiving 74280 citations. The topic is also known as: intelligent material & responsive material.


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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the feasibility of converting a thermal flow into an electrical power based on the thermotunneling effect was evaluated in the reciprocal way of work with the objective of being able to power a small sensor node.
Abstract: Over the past few years, MEMS and smart material technologies improvements have allowed autonomous sensor devices to become more and more widespread. As batteries are not always appropriate to power these systems, energy scavenging solutions from ambient power are currently being developed. In particular, many researches have been carried out to improve thermal to electrical energy conversion in ambient temperature gradients. Until now, thermoelectric materials are still the most employed for this application. However, the recent developments in nanoscale device structures open different perspectives. In these nanoscale systems, the heat transport is achieved between two electrodes thanks to electron tunneling. The thermotunnel effect is currently widely studied in the cooling configuration where it has already been shown that it is more efficient than the Peltier effect. We have decided to evaluate this effect in the reciprocal way of work with the objective of being able to power a small sensor node. Considering a device with a simplicial geometrical structure, a modeling has been developed in order to evaluate the feasibility of conversion of a thermal flow into an electrical power based on thermotunneling effect. Comparisons with thermoelectric performances at ambient temperature have been performed.

20 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the phase transition temperature of a poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) based gel was adjusted by copolymerization and by changing of the solvent composition.
Abstract: Several attempts have been made recently in order to develop smart windows, which can moderate light and heat intensities. Thermotropic gels have met with growing interest because of their advanced properties. Based upon phase transitions of polymer gels, a novel thermally adjustable window, which includes a gel layer, has been developed in our laboratory. The so-called gel-glass becomes opaque when the temperature exceeds a certain value and goes back to its original transparent state when it is cooled below the critical value again. Intelligent gel-glasses made of these materials can moderate the amount of sunlight and radiated heat. The optical properties of the gel layer are also modified by the Joule heat of audio frequency AC current. Two types of gel-glasses have been developed and investigated. Phase transition temperature of a poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) based gel was adjusted by copolymerization and by changing of the solvent composition. The cloud point of a poly(methyl vinyl ether) - water system in a PVA gel was varied by modifying the composition of the swelling agent. In the case of electrically adjustable thermotropic windows, optical properties, energy consumption and temperature changes during the switching process were studied.

20 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the transient response of a three-layer sandwich beam with an electrorheological core and developed a finite element model of the structure and a direct integration algorithm was used to simulate the impulse response of the proposed sandwich beam.
Abstract: The present work investigates the transient response of a three-layer sandwich beam with an electrorheological (ER) core. Electrorheological fluids are a class of smart materials, which exhibit reversible changes in mechanical properties when subjected to an electric field. As applying an electric field to the core layer changes the dynamic characteristics of the structure, the ER layer can be used for suppressing the vibrations and reducing the settling time of the beam. A finite element model of the structure is developed and a direct integration algorithm is used to simulate the impulse response of the proposed sandwich beam. The core is modeled as a Bingham plastic material and effects of changes in the applied electric field on the structure settling time and its natural frequencies are represented for several thickness ratios. The variations of damping force vector, due to the dependence of the ER fluid shear stress, to the sign of shear rate, are considered in each iteration. The ER layer thickness...

20 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This paper focusses on exploring new frontiers where the piezoelectric materials can improve the performance of the existing products and has provided more fuel efficiency and less emission results.

20 citations


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Performance
Metrics
No. of papers in the topic in previous years
YearPapers
2023168
2022315
2021268
2020250
2019252
2018239