Experimental Platform for Obtaining Electrical Resistance of a Shape Memory Alloy Actuator

Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) are unique metallic materials with the Shape Memory Effect (SME), which refers to a material's capacity to recover its original shape through temperature variation subjected to deformations. These alloys are commonly used as actuators to control vibration, deformation, position and have been used in several sectors in the last decades. Therefore, in order to enable a study about the behavior of the electrical resistance of an SMA actuator and the deformation measurement using strain-gauge sensors, an experiment is proposed in this work to be applied to the course of Electronic Instrumentation Laboratory of Electrical Engineering Degree at the Federal University of Campina Grande, Brazil. We used an experimental platform composed of a steel beam and an SMA actuator, and we also developed the necessary electronic system and Human Machine Interface. The experiment consists of activating the actuator by applying electric current and obtaining data corresponding to its electrical resistance and beam deformation. With the experiment's realization, the students will be able to draw the behavior curves and prepare a report with the analyses.