Experimental Investigation on the EBM-Based Additively Manufactured Prismatic Nickel-Titanium SMA Components

Additive manufacturing (AM) of the nickel-titanium (NiTi) shape memory alloys (SMA) have provided novel component solutions with a variety of design configurations in the industry. Electron beam melting (EBM) is a trending metal additive manufacturing process for industrial applications in the field of biomedical and aerospace engineering. In this study, experimental investigations were conducted to reveal the effect of processing conditions on the microstructure and hardness properties of EBM-fabricated nickel-titanium components. Furthermore, detailed microstructural characterizations were performed with a scanning electron microscope, EDS, and XRD for unveiling of the microscopic structure and phase analysis during the layer by layer solidification. The experimental results were systematically evaluated for the powder and the bulk prismatic components, respectively

Hybrid Battery Thermal Management System with NiTi SMA and Phase Change Material (PCM) for Li-ion Batteries

Poor heat dissipation and thermal runaway are most common in batteries subjected to fast charge or discharge and forced to work in hot or subzero ambient temperatures. For the safe operation of lithium-ion batteries throughout their lifecycle, a reliable battery thermal management system (BTMS) is required. A novel hybrid BTMS with a nickel-titanium (NiTi) shape memory alloy (SMA) actuated smart wire and phase change material (PCM) with expanded graphite (EG) is proposed in this study. A lumped electrochemical-thermal battery model is developed to analyze the efficiency of the proposed hybrid BTMS. The multiphysics BTMS is investigated by discharging at various electrical currents in both off-modes (inactivated SMA) and on-modes (activated SMA). Under on-mode BTMS operation, temperature elevation is reduced by 4.63 degrees C and 6.102 degrees C during 3 C and 5 C discharge, respectively. The proposed hybrid BTMS can be considered a competitive alternative for use in electrical vehicles due to its smart, compact, safe, and efficient performance in both cold and hot environments

Additively Manufactured Custom Soft Gripper with Embedded Soft Force Sensors for an Industrial Robot

Soft robotic grippers are required for power grasping of objects without inducing damage. Additive manufacturing can be used to produce custom-made grippers for industrial robots, in which soft joints and links are additively manufactured. In this study, a monoblock soft robotic gripper having three geometrically gradient fingers with soft sensors was designed and additively manufactured for the power grasping of spherical objects. The monoblock structure design reduces the number of components to be assembled for the soft gripper, and the gripper is designed with a single cavity to enable bending by the application of pneumatic pressure, which is required for the desired actuation. Finite element analysis (FEA) using a hyperelastic material model was performed to simulate the actuation. A material extrusion process using a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) was used to manufacture the designed gripper. Soft sensors were produced by a screen printing process that uses a flexible material and ionic liquids. The grasping capability of the manufactured gripper was experimentally evaluated by changing the pneumatic pressure (0-0.7 MPa) of the cavity. Experimental results show that the proposed monoblock gripper with integrated soft sensors successfully performed real-time grasp detection for power grasping