SMART MATERIALS IN AUTOMOBILES ENGINEERING

Deepak Pillai (B.E. Production) deepu_saku@yahoo.com Mohan B. Kulkarni (B.E. Production) mohanbkool@rediffmail.com

K.K. Wagh Institute of Engineering Education and Research, Amrutdham, Nasik-3. ABSTRACT Science and technology have made amazing developments in the design of electronics and machinery using standard materials, which do not have particularly special properties (i.e. steel, aluminum, gold). Imagine the range of possibilities, which exist for special materials that have properties scientists can manipulate. Some such materials have the ability to change shape or size simply by adding a little bit of heat, or to change from a liquid to a solid almost instantly when near a magnet; these materials are called smart materials. Smart materials have one or more properties that can be dramatically altered. A wide variety of smart materials already exists, and is being researched extensively. These include piezoelectric materials, magneto-rheostatic materials (MR), electrorheostatic materials (ER), and shape memory alloys. Some everyday items are already incorporating smart materials (coffeepots, cars, the International Space Station, eyeglasses) and the number of applications for them is growing steadily. In both ER and MR fluids, the change in the resistance to flow is triggered by an electrical stimulus. The microscopic cause behind the thickening effect is the same in both fluids: polarization of the particles induced by the application of the electric or magnetic field and the subsequent formation of particle chains. Given sufficient strength of the field, the particle chains eventually bridge the electrodes. The automotive and aerospace industries were probably the first to identify potential engineering applications of smart fluids. This paper highlights these engineering applications - notably for vibration control and variable torque transmission. Nowadays many additional avenues are being explored, for example MR fluids are being developed for use in car shocks, damping machine vibration. ER fluids have mainly been developed for use in clutches and valves, as well as engine mounts designed to reduce noise and vibration in vehicles.

INTRODUCTION
Science and technology have made amazing developments in the design of electronics and machinery using standard materials, which do not have particularly special properties (i.e. steel, aluminum, gold). Imagine the range of possibilities, which exist for special materials that have properties scientists can manipulate. Some such materials have the ability to change shape or size simply by adding a little bit of heat, or to change from a liquid to a solid almost instantly when near a magnet; these materials are called smart materials. What are they? They are those materials that posses both intrinsic and extrinsic capabilities to respond to stimuli and environmental changes. They respond to changes in temperature, moisture, pH, magnetic Field, electric field, etc. The term smart materials encompasses a wide variety of materials, such as piezoelectric materials, magneto-rheostatic materials (MR), electro-rheostatic materials (ER), and shape memory alloys etc. Like many scientific advances, smart fluids were discovered by accident. Researchers using marble and oil to construct a very high voltage switch in 1940s noticed that as the switch operated, the marble eroded into a dust in the oil, which turns into from a liquid to a paste in the presence of high voltage. After the initial novelty wore off, interest in smart fluids languished through the 1970s and 1980s. Such controllable fluids and materials whose rheology may vary by the application of the external inputs have long been seen as offering the possibility simple quite rapid response interfaces between electronic controls and mechanical systems. The automotive and aerospace industries were probably the first to identify the potential engineering application of smart fluids and material Notably for vibration control, variable torque transmission, medical rehabilitation, and Chromogenic application. Nowadays, many additional avenues are been explored, e.g., civil engineering structures,Robotics and manufacturing and distributed structures.

An A-to-Z guide to smart materials...

Smart Materials: Emerging Markets for Intelligent Gels, Ceramics, Alloys, and Polymers is your guide to the world of smart materials. In one handy volume it will give you a hard-headed assessment of new applications and markets ... And brief you on important developments related to dozens of materials in a wide range of categories, including: Piezoelectric materials - These ceramics or polymers are characterized by a swift, linear shape change in response to an electric field. The electricity makes the material expand or contract almost instantly. The materials have potential uses in actuators that control chatter in precision machine tools, improved robotic parts that move faster and with greater accuracy, smaller microelectronic circuits in machines ranging from computers to photolithography printers, and health-monitoring fibers for bridges, buildings, and wood utility poles. Electrostrictive and magnetostrictive materials - This refers to the material quality of changing size in response to either an electric or magnetic field, and conversely, producing a voltage when stretched. These materials show promise in applications ranging from pumps and valves, to aerospace wind tunnel and shock tube instrumentation and landing gear hydraulics, to biomechanics force measurement for orthopedic gait and posturography, sports, ergonomics, neurology, cardiology, and rehabilitation. Rheological materials - Smart materials encompass not only solids but also fluids, electrorheological and magnetorheological fluids that can change state instantly through the application of an electric or magnetic charge. These fluids show promise in shock absorbers, dampers for vehicle seats and exercise equipment, and optical finishing. Thermo responsive materials - Shape memory alloys, the dominant smart material, change shape in response to heat or cold. They are most commonly Nitinol, or nickel and titanium combined. Less popular but still possessing the shape memory effects are gold cadmium, silver cad-mium, copper-aluminumnickel, copper tin, copper zinc, and copper zinc aluminum. They are useful in couplers, thermostats, automobile, and plane and helicopter parts. Electro chromic materials - Electrochromism is defined as the ability of a material to change its optical properties when a voltage is applied across it. These materials are used as antistatic layers, electro chrome layers in LCDs (liquid crystal displays), and cathodes in lithium batteries.

Fig1. Piezoelectric effect

Fig2. Smart Fluid

Fig3. M.R. fluid in working

Fig4.Working of Smart fluid.

Applications of Smart materials in Automobiles

Smart application for the automotive industries are challenging for a basic reason that is the market demand is for low cost components. The smart materials that find application in modern cars offer many advantages and newer capabilities over conventional materials. The following are the few advantages 1. Low power consumption, 2. Absence of moving parts, 3. Synergistic capabilities, etc. If you own a sports car or a Cadillac, you might have MR fluids in your shock absorbers. The stiffness of magnetic shocks can be electronically adjusted thousands of times per second, providing a remarkably smooth ride. This is done by a semi active suspension system, which uses ER fluid in its dampers. Smart materials can also be used to control active cabinet noise in cars. One of the biggest breakthroughs in smart materials research is the smart skin application to control the drag acting on the car surface, to be used in the coming years. Lord Corp. is also studying MR technology for seat belts and airbags in cars. The following are some of the specific applications of smart materials in automobiles: SMAs 1. 2. 3. 4. Open-close mechanisms Release mechanisms Active braking systems Active skin systems

Piezoelectric Materials 1. Sensors for wiper actuation 2. Sensors for side impact diagnosis (in smart cars) 3. Sensors for force/ motion 4. Sensors for platform stabilization 5. Ultrasonic motors 6. Sonar arrays for collision avoidance (in smart cars) Magnetostrictive Materials 1. Active cabinet noise control 2. Sonar for collision avoidance (in smart cars) 3. Active sensing and actuation Magnetorheological/ Electrorheological Fluids 1. Active clutch mechanisms 2. Position and velocity control 3. Active suspension

Some of the application areas of Smart Material are discussed below, 1. Piezoelectric material as Sensors: Piezoelectric materials are most widely used as sensors in different environments. They are often used to measure fluid compositions, fluid density, fluid viscosity, or the force of an impact. An example of a piezoelectric material in everyday life is the airbag sensor in your car. The material senses the force of an impact on the car and sends and electric charge deploying the airbag. Piezoceramic materials can produce motion by receiving electric potential across their polarized surfaces. A piezoelectric crystal vibrates when an alternating voltage is applied to it, and almost all of the energy given to the material is converted into mechanical motion. Piezoceramic materials, commonly considered to be much more efficient than electromagnetic instruments, make very good candidates in a low power consumption design for vibrators oscillating in their fundamental modes. When it is excited at low frequency, a piezoceramic material vibrates; at high frequencies it also produces sound, as a transducer does. The resonant frequency of the ceramic is too high to produce an audible tone by itself, so a metal plate must be attached that vibrates with the contraction and expansion of the piezoceramic. Therefore, both audible and silent alerts can be generated from the same source by exciting it with two different frequencies. PZT-5H, the piezoceramic material chosen for the silent alert, is used in applications requiring fine movement control such as in ink-jet printers. The material provides extremely high permissivity, coupling, and piezoelectric constant. It has the lowest Curie point (the temperature at which a material's magnetic or ferroelectric properties change) of the PZT-5 family of "soft" materials, restricting its operating temperature range, and it has lower time stability than most piezo materials. 2. Suspension systems: Recently, a great deal of attention is focused on damper design that significantly suppresses the vibrations of the vehicle system. So far three types of suspension were proposed and successfully implemented: Passive, Active, and Semi Active. The semi active suspension system offers desirable performance that is generally enhanced in the active mode without large power sources and expensive hardware. This system features ER fluids as its working medium. One of the salient properties of an ER fluid is its responds fast to an electric field, and hence it has a wide control bandwidth.

Fig5. Schematic configuration of an ER damper

Fig6. Vehicle configuration for an ER suspension test A semi active suspension system using ER fluid is shown in fig.5.the Er damper is divided into upper and lower chambers by a piston that is filled with ER fluid. The ER fluid flows by the pistons motion through the duct between the inner and outer cylinder from one chamber to the other. A positive voltage is produced by a high-voltage supply unit connected to the inner cylinder, and the negative voltage is connected to the other cylinder. The gas chamber located outside the lower chamber acts as an accumulator of the ER fluid induced by the pistons motion. If no electric field is applied, the ER damper produces a damping force caused only by fluid resistance. However, if a certain level of the electric field is supplied to the ER damper, the ER damper produces an additional damping force owing to the yield stress of the ER fluid. This damping force of the ER damper can be continuously tuned by controlling the intensity of electric field.

To evaluate the vibrational control performance of the vehicle system using the ER damper, closed-loop control vehicle system can be constructed as shown in Fig.6. A portable computer (microprocessor) equipped with a DSP (Digital Signal Processor) boared is normally positioned beside the drivers seat. Four pairs (one for the car body and the others for the wheels) of accelerometers are installed on four independent suspensions to measure the vertical motions of the vehicle. The signals from the accelerometers, gyroscope and LDT ( linear differential transformer) are fed to the microprocessor, and depending upon the control procedure employed, the required control input voltages are determined and applied to the four ER dampers through four high voltage amplifiers positioned at four corners in the trunk. 3. Chromogenic systems: They can change optical properties in response to an electrical, photo or thermal stimulus. Electrically activated Chromogenic systems are used for smart windows and mirrors in the automotive markets, and for low-information-content displays. Electrically activated Chromogenic can be user controlled in contrast to the self-regulating, passive nature of photo chromic and thermo chromic devices. Smart windows are electronic devices that are square meters in size. They must have high optical quality and uniformity. Thin-film fabrication technology meets these standards but market price sensitivity is high. Automotive mirrors are a more manageable technical challenge. Current research focuses on cost, durability and uniformity. The most important aspect of smart windows is cost, not the technology behind it. Technology will become more of a product differentiator, once Chromogenic systems are cost competitive. Electrochromics have been very successful as dynamic antiglare automotive mirrors.

Fig7. Smart Window

4. Shape Memory Alloys Shape memory alloys are monolithic smart materials that respond to changes in the environment and external stimuli. They usually respond to these changes /stimuli by recovering their predefined/original shape and size. Shape memory alloys exhibit two distinct phenomena, namely shape memory effect and super-elastic effect. Shape memory effect shows the materials response to temperature, i.e., thermal memory. But super-elastic effect indicates the materials response to stress, i.e., mechanical memory. a. Shape Memory Effect This happens when a material previously deformed in martensite the low temperature phase- recovers its original shape when heated up to the austentite the high temperature phase .The graph no.__ represents the stability zone for the two phases in the stress temperature representation. According to the clausius Clapeyaron relationship between stress and temperature, the oblige line indicates the boundary between phases under transition period. The martensitic transformation occurs across a given range of temperature (Ms to Mf, from austentite to martensite and As to Af, from martensite to austentite). Let us consider an example: A strip that is flat in the austentite phase i.e., memorize shape (fig). If a stress is applied below the martensite finish temperature (Mf) and if this stress is higher than the critical stress to detwin martensite, the variant reorientation occurs, and the strip is deformed in a plastic like way (step 2). This means that when the stress is released, almost all of the deformation remains. When the material is heated above Af (step3), the material transformation to austentite and recovers its original shape. Repetitive cooling (step 4) does not cause any shape change. It is a one-time occurrence; material keeps its original austentite shape upon further cooling cycles below Mf. Because non-oriented martensite structures have the same specific macroscopic volume as the austentite crystal.

Fig8. Shape memory effect

b. The Superelastic Effect This occurs when applying a stress at a constant temperature induces the martensitic transformation. Figure shows a systematic representation of the superelastic transformation on stress temperature and stress strain graph. The material in its austenitic state is loaded at a constant temperature. The mechanical transformation is purely elastic until the stress reaches a critical level where the transformation starts. At this point the stress remains constant, and the strain is still increasing. This reason usually called the stress plateau extends until the strain has reach typically 8% and even 15% or more for single crystals. When all of the austenitic has been transformed in martenstic, another elastic domain can be observed that corresponds to the elasticity of the martensite. When unloading, the material displays hysterisis. It is very important to note that the stress level of the plateau is temperature dependent.

Fig9.Super Elastic effect Though shape memory alloys are used for variety of applications in the car produced,they are in particular used for the two specific applications namely actuator and bumber. These two different types of applications called for shape memory alloyswith an entirely different set of material and shape memory characteristics. While foractuators a shape memory alloy with a smaller hysteresis is preferred, for bumpers, shape memory alloys with a larger hysteresis are desired. Shape memory alloys with large recovery force and huge recovery strength are desired for actuator applications. A number of factors influence the mechanical properties and shape memory characteristics of the alloys. Chemical composition, heat treatment, mechanical working and grain size are some of the most important factors that influence the transformation temperatures of shape memory alloys. For actuators, the smaller the hysteresis width, the better the actuation capabilities are. The response time should be as small as possible.

Following are the most important properties required for SMAs for actuatos: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Simplicity, compactness and safety Capability to work without producing noise, dust and spark High power to weight ratio Excellent corrosion resistance High bio-compatibility

SMA Actuators in Automobiles 1. Control mechanisms: a) Transmission control b) Engine control c) Climate control d) Wiper pressure control a) Engine hook lock b) Filter inlet lock c) Trunk lock d) Central locking a) Seat-belt adjustment b) Rear-view mirror adjustment c) Shock absorber adjustment Fuel management

2. Locking mechanisms:

3. Adjustment mechanisms:

4. Management systems:

Smart Car Concept

Today, the cars that are being manufactured abroad have smartness or intelligence build into them. These cars, called smart cars, exhibit what is called smart behavior. In case of heavy downpour or snowfall, the incorporation of sensor system into the car helps to detect the location of the lane markers and projects fascimilies of them onto the windshield. The incorporation of smart materials makes driving even in difficult climate or weather conditions easy and pleasurable. Not only do the smart cars have the capability forewarn impending accident situation but also have safety measures built into them to prevent/ minimize damage to human lives and automobiles. They use an altogether different approach to safety. They are equipped/ designed to predict the likelihood of occurrence of accidents. They even give those extra few seconds to prepare for an accident and, in fact , even react before one actually occurs. When the car swerves too much, the smart system gets activated so that it tightens all the seat belts, moves the front seat to upright and safe position, closes the sun roof and opens the windows. Whenever the cars swerve/ drift from their lanes, they are warned by means of a rumble-strip noise. These preparations help to reduce the probability of the passenger being ejected/ thrown out of the vehicle. The objective is to avoid accidents altogether. Since it is highly improbable, the major objective then is to minimize the likelihood of casualties and damages to man and machines. The application of smart materials in todays cars will lead to improved performance and return enormous benefits.

SUMMARY
Meantime, researchers have many technical and engineering challenges to overcome, particularly issues of control over the systems. The application area of smart materials is widening. The automobile industry has already prompted the standardization of material production, testing, and mechanical behavior; current efforts include the formation of an ASTM standard for using smart material in automobile devices. This new standard will represent a significant milestone in the continual effort to demystify smart material and augment their use in engineering and design. Furthermore, due to the unusual and complex behavior of smart fluids a successful development requires a co-operation of various disciplines like Chemistry, Material science and Engineering as well as mechanical and electrical engineering in order to use large potential inherent in this technology.

REFERENCES
Mel Schwartz: Encyclopedia of Smart Material Vol. 1 & 2. S.Ohashi: Material Science and Engg. Science and engineering of Smart Materials, S.S. Verma, Engineering Advances, May 2004. Microrobotics, Microdevices Based on Shape-Memory Alloys, Yves Bellouard Smart Suspension Systems for Bridge-Friendly Vehicles,Yonghong Chen, SPIE Manual, 2002. www.science.nasa .gov www.isl_e.com www.smart-material.com