Composite Structures 56 (2002) 235241

www.elsevier.com/locate/compstruct

Dynamic stability of a shape memory alloy wire

reinforced composite beam
Xin-Yan Tsai *, Lien-Wen Chen
Department of Mechanical Engineering, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan, Peoples Republic of China

Abstract
The dynamic stability problem of a shape memory alloy reinforced composite beam subjected to an axial periodic dynamic force
was studied. The shape memory alloy (NITINOL) bers were embedded along the neutral axis of a ber glass composite beam. A
large tensile recovery force develops in the bers due to the phase transformation and the mechanical constraints. The numerical
parametric studies of the natural frequencies and static buckling loads of the composite beam with activated SMA bers were
investigated.
The nite element method and the harmonic balance method were used to calculate the instability region of the composite beam.
The SMA bers were found to have a signicant eect on the dynamic stability regions. 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights
reserved.
Keywords: Shape memory alloy; Dynamic stability; Composite beam

1. Introduction
Shape memory alloys are materials which have a
distinctive shape recovery eect. The shape memory effect can generate signicant forces during shrinkage as it
undergoes its unique phase transformation by temperature change. The utilization of the shape memory
nickeltitanium alloy (NITINOL) in developing smart
composite was proposed by Rogers et al. [1]. Brinson
and Lammering [2] propose a nonlinear nite element
procedure which incorporates a thermo-dynamically
derived constitutive law to study the shape memory alloy material behavior. Harlbut and Regelbrugge [3]
evaluated a phenomenological three-dimensional constitutive model for shape memory alloys embedded in
shell structures.
Lee and Seo [4] investigated the buckling and postbuckling control of composite beams with embedded
shape memory alloy actuators. The position control of a
composite beam actuated by a shape memory wire was
proposed by Song et al. [5]. Birman and associates [6]
studied deformations and stresses in hybrid shape
memory alloy plates subjected to low velocity impact.
Chen and Levy [7] worked on the active vibration con*

Corresponding author. Tel.: +886-275-7575x62143; fax: +886-2352973.

E-mail address: chenlw@mail.ncku.edu.tw (X.-Y. Tsai).

trol of elastic beam by means of shape memory alloy

bers. The control of the natural frequencies of a exible
ber glass composite beam reinforced by shape memory
alloy wires was presented by Baz et al. [8]. Ostachowicz
et al. [9] solved the free vibration problems of multilayer composite plates with embedded shape memory
alloy wires.
Briseghella and Pellegrino [10] studied the dynamic
stability problems of elastic structures by the nite element approach. The dynamic stability of Timoshenko
beams resting on an elastic foundation was solved by
Abbas and Thomas [11] and Yokoyoma [12].
The dynamic instability of a structure subjected to
periodic axial compressive forces has attracted a lot of
attention. Bolotin [13] presented comprehensive studies
for the dynamic stability of machine components and
structural members. Takahashi et al. [14] investigated
dynamic unstable regions of cantilever rectangular
plates. They presented numerical results obtained for
various loading conditions that are applied along the
edge.
The dynamic stability of a shape memory alloy ber
reinforced composite beam is presented herein. The nite element method and harmonic balance method are
used to solve the dynamic stability problems of the
composite beam. The shape memory ber has signicant
eect on the dynamic behavior of the composite
beam.

0263-8223/02/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 3 - 8 2 2 3 ( 0 2 ) 0 0 0 0 8 - 9

236

X.-Y. Tsai, L.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 56 (2002) 235241

in which

2. Material behavior of the shape memory material

The mechanical properties of shape memory alloys
depend on internal crystalline transformations as
functions of stress, temperature and history of the
material. The relation between stress, strain and temperature of the shape memory material can be written
as [15]
r
r0 Ene
e0 HnT
T0 Xnn
n0 ;
1
where r; e and T are stress, strain and temperature,
respectively. En is Youngs modulus, Hn is the
thermo-elastic coecient, Xn is the phase transformation coecient and n is the martensite volume fraction. The variables with subscript 0 correspond to the
initial conditions.
Youngs modulus En and the phase transformation
coecient Xn can be expressed as
En EA nEM
EA

and
Xn
eL En;

where EA and EM are Youngs modulus of 100% austenite and 100% martensite, respectively. eL is the maximum recoverable strain.
The
martensite
fraction
n
during
the
M martensite ! A austenite transformation is assumed to have the following form
n

n0
f cos aA T
AS bA r 1g;
2

where
aA

p
;
Af
AS

bA



CA

aA
;
CA
dAS
dr

5

1

and for the M ! A transformation



1
n0
1 n0
cos aM T
Mf bM r
n
2
2

p
;
MS
Mf
aM
;
bM

CM



1
dMS
CM
:
dr
aM

The four temperature parameters are martensite nish temperature (Mf ), martensite start temperature (MS ),
austenite start temperature (AS ) and austenite nish
temperature (Af ).
The material parameters for the NiTi shape memory
alloy ber are shown in Table 1.
3. Formulation of the problem
A composite beam made of randomly oriented shape
glass ber in the resin matrix is considered. The NITINOL bers are embedded inside rubber sleeves placed
along the neutral axes of the composite beam, as shown
in Fig. 1. The bers are free to move in this arrangement
in order to avoid degradation of the shape memory effect. The beam on an elastic foundation model [16] in
Fig. 2 is chosen to study dynamic stability problems of a
composite beam reinforced with NiTi shape memory
alloy ber. The material properties of the beam are assumed to be constant during the temperature change
process of the NITINOL bers.
The Timoshenko beam theory is used in the present
analysis. The assumptions of small deformations are
made here. The nite element method is adopted to
solve the dynamic problems of the composite beam with
NiTi bers. The composite beam element can be treated as an orthotropic laminate because of the unidirectional reinforcement of NiTi bers.
Hamiltons principle is applied to derive the dynamic
equilibrium equation of the composite beam reinforced
with NiTi shape memory bers. The RayleighRitz nite element method is also used to solve the dynamic
stability problems of a reinforced composite beam subjected to an axial periodic force.
The following equation is hold due to Hamiltons
principle
Z t2
dT
U dW dt 0;
8
t1

Table 1
Material properties for the NITINOL alloy
Moduli, density

Transformation temperature C

Transformation constants

EA 67  103 MPa
EM 26:3  103 MPa
H 0:55 MPa/C
q 6448 kg=m3

Mf 9
MS 18:4
AS 34:5
Af 49

CM 8 MPa/C
CA 13:8 MPa/C
eL 0:067 (max. strain)
Diameter: 0.5 mm

X.-Y. Tsai, L.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 56 (2002) 235241

237

Fig. 1. The NITINOL-reinforced composite beam.

Fig. 3. The Timoshenko beam element.

J x qIx:
Fig. 2. A composite beam on elastic foundation subjected to an external axial load. kf x is the function of elastic foundation.

where T is the kinetic energy U is the potential energy

and dW is the variational virtual work due to external
forces.
The total transverse displacement of the beam w is the
sum of wb the displacement due to bending and ws the
displacement due to shear and can be expressed as
wx; t wb x; t ws x; t:

Therefore
10

and the rotation #x; t is written as

11

and
Z

l
0

ow
m
ox

2

1
dx
2

l
0

owb
J x
ox

2
dx:

13

The bending moment is expressed as

o#
M EI
ox
and

wx; t Nt x fqe g;
#x; t Nr x fqe g;

16

in which
17

and Nt x and Nr x are listed in Appendix A.

From Eqs. (16) and (17), the strain w0s due to shear is
written as
0

owb
:
ox

The Timoshenko beam element of length l is shown in

Fig. 3. The potential energy and kinetic energy of the
Timoshenko beam element of length l are written as

2
Z
1 l
o#
U t
EI
dx
2 0
ox


2
Z
Z
1 l 0
ows
1 l

k AG
dx
kf xw2 dx 12
2 0
2 0
ox

1
T t
2

The elastic foundation modulus kf can be seen in [16]

and k 0 is the shear correction factor.
The displacement wx; t and rotational displacement
#x; t can be expressed in terms of the nodal displacement vector and shape function matrix Nt x and
Nr x

fqe g fw1 ; #1 ; w2 ; #2 gT

ow owb ows

ox
ox
ox

#x; t

15

w0s w0
# Nt
Nr fqe g Bs fqe g;

18

the notation means the derivative with respect to x.

Then, the element potential energy U and the element
kinetic energy T can be written in matrix form
1
1
T
T
U fqe g K e fqe g fqe g Kfe fqe g
2
2
and
1
1
T
T
T fq_ e g Mbe fq_ e g fq_ e g Mse fq_ e g;
2
2
where
K e Kbe Kse ;
Z l
 0 T  0 
e
Kb
Nr EI Nr dx;
Kse

14
Kfe

Z
Z

19

20

21a
21b

0
l
T

21c

21d

Bs k 0 GABs dx;
0
l

Nt kf xNt dx;
0

238

Mbe

X.-Y. Tsai, L.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 56 (2002) 235241

Mse

Z
Z

l
T

Nt qAxNt dx;

21e

Nr T qINr dx:

21f

bPcr cos htKg fqg f0g:

29

l
0

The variational virtual work due to the external axial

force P t is expressed as
Z l


22
P w0 dw0 dx:
dW
0

Using the element displacement equations (16) and

(17), we can write the Eq. (22) in matrix form
T

dW dfqe g P Kge fqe g;

23

where
Kge

M fqg K Kf
aPcr Kg

Eq. (29) is a system of second-order dierential

equations with periodic coecients of Mathieu type.
The theory of linear dierential with periodic coecients
predicts that the boundaries between stable and unstable
regions can be constructed by periodic pollutions of
periods T and 2T . The harmonic balance method [13] is
used to solve Eq. (29) and the periodic solutions are
assumed to be as follows:




1 
X
1
iht
iht
fbi g cos
f qg fb0 g
fai g sin
2
2
2
i2;4;...
and

Nt0 T Nt0 dx:

24

f qg

1 
X

fai g sin

i1;3;...

Substituting Eqs. (19), (20) and (23) into Eq. (8), the
element dynamic equation of a beam subjected to an
axial force P can be obtained
M e f
qe g K e Kfe
P Kge fqe g f0g

25

in which
M e Mbe Mse :

26

Assemble the contributions of all elements, the global

dynamic equation of the composite beam reinforced
with the NiTi shape memory alloy bers can be expressed as
M f
qg K Kf
P Kg fqg f0g:

27

4. The dynamic stability analysis

The dynamic stability problems of a composite beam
subjected to an axial periodic force P t will be studied.
The natural frequencies and the regions of instability
due to the parametric resonance are calculated.
The axial external force is now assumed to be function of time and is expressed as
P t aPcr bPcr cos ht;

28

where Pcr is the static buckling load, a is the static

loading factor, b is the dynamic loading factor and h is
the excitation frequency of the axial load.
Substituting Eq. (28) into Eq. (27), we can obtain the
equation of motion of a composite beam on elastic
foundation subjected to an axial excitation force

iht
2

fbi g cos

iht
2


;

30

where fai g and fbi g are unknown coecient vectors.

Substituting Eq. (30) into Eq. (29) and by grouping
the sine and cosine terms, two sets of linear algebraic
equations in fai g and fbi g are obtained for each solution. To obtain non-trivial solutions, the determinant of
the coecient matrix must be zero. This leads to the
generalized eigenvalue problems which are solved to
obtain the instability region of the composite beam.

5. Results and discussions

The nite element method is used to solve the dynamic stability problems of a composite beam reinforced with shape memory alloy bers. The dimensions
and material properties of the composite beam are
shown in Table 2. Table 3 shows that the present nite
element solution have very good accuracy compared
with reference [16]. Firstly the following non-dimensional parameters are dened:
r
qAL4
-
x : non-dimensional frequency;
EI
L2
Pcr : non-dimensional buckling coefficient
Pcr
EL
and the shear correction factor k 0 0:85.
It can be seen that the beam is more sti when more
NiTi bers are used. The natural frequencies also increase with increasing temperature. In Fig. 4 the eect,
the eect of pre-strain of the NITINOL wires on the rst

Table 2
Material properties and dimensions of the beam
Youngs modulus, E (GPa)

Shear modulus, G (GPa)

Poissons ratio, m

Density, q kg=m3

Length (m)

Width (m)

3.43

1.27

0.35

1250

0.2

0.03

X.-Y. Tsai, L.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 56 (2002) 235241

239

Table 3
The rst mode natural frequencies (Hz) of a clampclamped composite beam with shape memory alloy bersa
SMA wires

5
10
15

25 C

45 C

65 C

Present

Ref. [16]

Present

Ref. [16]

Present

Ref. [16]

44.56096
50.35212
55.54055

44.4668
50.22763
55.39254

57.86093
72.49647
84.61214

57.70432
72.30353
84.41452

70.24685
91.75528
109.0402

70.0573
91.56567
108.906

a 0

k 0:85 , L 0:3 m, S 525.

mode natural frequencies of a simplysimply supported

beam is presented. It can be seen that the pre-strain can
increase the stiness of the beam. The beam with larger
wire pre-strain will get larger natural frequencies.

The static buckling of the shape memory alloy reinforced composite beam are studied in Figs. 5 and 6.
Again, it can be seen that the buckling strength increase
with increasing number of NITINOL wires and the prestrain can increase the buckling load of the composite
beam. Plots of dynamic load parameter b vs. frequency
parameter h=x are made in Fig. 7. It shows the eect of
temperature of the NITINOL wires. The primary dynamic instability regions are presented in Fig. 7. It can
be that the increase of wire temperature will shift the
parametric resonance frequency to higher frequency
parameter h=x and get smaller instability region. It
means that the higher wire temperature will let the
composite beam more stable. Fig. 8 shows the eects of
the number of NITNOL wires on the dynamic instability regions. It can also be seen that more NITINOL
wires will increase the stiness of the composite beam,

Fig. 4. The eect of prestrain of NITINOL wires on the rst mode of

simplysimply supported beams.

Fig. 5. The eect of temperature and number of wires: (a) simply

simply, (b) clampclamp (S 170, 0.1% pre-strain).

Fig. 6. The eect of pre-strain on buckling: (a) simplysimply, (b)

clampclamp (S 170, 5 NITINOL wires).

240

X.-Y. Tsai, L.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 56 (2002) 235241

beam, it can be seen that the larger pre-strain has higher

resonance frequency and smaller instability region. The
system can become more stable due to the existence of
the pre-strain.
6. Conclusion

Fig. 7. The eect of wire temperature, clampclamp B.C. (a 0:5, 10

NITINOL wires, 0.1% pre-strain).

The dynamic stability analysis of a shape memory

alloy wire reinforced composite beam has presented. It is
shown that the existence of NITINOL wires will increase the stiness of the composite beam. The increase
of the wire temperature will increase the parametric
resonance frequencies of the composite beam and the
dynamic instability region will get smaller. The prestrain of the NITINOL ber can also be used to increase
the stiness of the beam and consequently to have a
more dynamically stable system of the composite beam.
The eects of the shape memory alloy material on the
dynamic stability of plates and shells are also interesting
topics to be studied.
Acknowledgements
The authors sincerely acknowledge the nancial assistance of the National Science Council of Taiwan
under the Grant No. NSC 90-2212-E006-035.
Appendix A
The detail expression of shape functions, geometric
matrix and mass matrix.

Fig. 8. The eect of number of NITINOL wires on the primary instability region, clampclamp B.C. (a 0:5; 65 C, 0.1% pre-strain).

the system will get more stable when we use more wires
to reinforce the beam.
The eect of the pre-strain is shown in Fig. 9. Because
the pre-strain can increase the stiness of the composite

Fig. 9. The eect of pre-strain on the primary instability region

(clampclamp B.C.) (a 0:5, 10 NITINOL wires, 65C).

Nt x Nt1

Nt2

Nt3

Nt4 ;

Nr x Nr1

Nr2

Nr3

Nr4 ;

1
1
3n2 2n3 1
nU ;
1U


l
U
2
3
2
n
2n n n
n ;
Nt2
1U
2


1
U
2
3
2
3n
2n
n
n ;
Nt3
1U
2


l
U
Nt4

n2 n3
n
n2 ;
1U
2
Nt1

Nr1

6

n n2 ;
l1 U

Nr2

1
1
4n 3n2 1
nU ;
1U

Nr3

6
n
n2 ;
l1 U

X.-Y. Tsai, L.-W. Chen / Composite Structures 56 (2002) 235241

Nr4

241

1

2n 3n3 nU ;
1U

x
n ;
l
12EI
U 0
;
k GAl2
2
K e

12

6
EI
6
U 4

6l
4 Ul2

l3 1

SYMM
2
Kge

6
6
301 U l 4

36 60U 30U2

3

12
6l

6l 2
Ul2 7
7;
12

6l 5
4 Ul2
3l
4 5U 2:5U2 l2

36 60U 30U2

3l
36 60U 30U2

SYMM
2
Mbe

6
6
26
2101 U 4

70U2 147U 78

qAl

35U2 77U 44 4l
2
7U2 14U 8 l4

3
3l

1 5U 2:5U2 l2 7
7;
5

3l
4 5U 2:5U2 l2

35U2 63U 27
35U2 63U 26 4l
70U2 147U 78

SYMM
2
Mse

6
6
301 U l 4

36

qI

3
15Ul
10U2 5U 4l2

36
15U
3l
36

SYMM

x
n ;
l
12EI
U 0
:
k GAl2

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3

35U2 63U 26 4l
2

7U2 14U 6 l4 7
7
2 7;

35U2 77U 44 l4 5
2
7U2 14U 6 l4

3
3
15Ul
5U2
5U2
1l2 7
7;
5
15U
3l2
2
2
10U 5U 4l

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