By boltzmann on November 13, 2009
Smart materials including sensors and actuator applications are often based on Lead-Zirconate Titanate (PZT) as the active component in the system. PZT is often used because despite being a ceramic, it’s a fairly versatile material for manufacturing purposes. You can form wafers, fibers, composites, and thin films with PZT, and include it in a number [...]
Posted in Smart Materials | Tagged Green, PZT
By boltzmann on October 19, 2009
Publishing and distributing content to an audience has always been an interesting topic for me. While I was working on my dissertation on Active Fiber Composite (AFC) Reliability I also educated myself on blogging and photography topics. Via blogging I learned about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) when publishing internet articles and posting photos to sites [...]
Posted in Publications, Smart Materials | Tagged AFC, Dissertation, Publication, Publishing
By boltzmann on July 21, 2009
Having lofty goals is good for individuals. It motivates us think, more importantly to imagine the possibility of attaining things which should be impossible – when viewed from within the conventional idea of what is possible.
Google is littered with random stories about conspiricies and views on the fake moon landing. This missed the point. The [...]
Posted in Inspiration | Tagged Moon
By boltzmann on July 20, 2009
The i-net Basel Innovation Lounge is hosting an event promoting the topic of Biomaterials as an innovation topic. I was clued into the meeting via an invitation on an Amazee project (innovation networks).
Professor Thomas Scheibel is going to talk about the development of techniques in the biological materials realm, which enable the manufacture of synthetic [...]
Posted in Events | Tagged Basel
By boltzmann on May 3, 2007
Electroactive polymers (EAP) represent a relatively new (as compared with Nitinol) class of smart materials. EAPs can exhibit very high deformations coupled with low forces and are classified in two forms, dielectric and ionic based.
Posted in Electroactive Polymers (EAP), Smart Materials | Tagged EAP, Materials
By boltzmann on May 3, 2007
The Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) category of smart materials is made up of metallic alloys with shape memory effects, which rely on a temperature driven phase transformation to realize shape change in the material. Essentially, a material can be deformed, and returned to its original shape by heating. Materials that heal themselves, actuators, nanotechnology, numerous medical devices, and many other applications exist for SMAs.
Posted in Shape Memory Alloys (SMA), Smart Materials | Tagged Materials, SMA
By boltzmann on May 3, 2007
The goal of smart materials research is to enable the design of materials that can function beyond the traditional design interests such as strength, stiffness, thermal conductivity, etc. An active or smart material system can generally be thought of consisting of three essential elements, the active material, the passive material, and the control system.
Posted in Smart Materials | Tagged Materials
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