Structural deformation performance of glass fiber reinforced polymer composite beam actuated by embedded indented SMA wires

Intelligent morphing wings have become a research hotspot due to their potential value. This paper is also an innovative basic research work to study it. The deformation performances of the GFRP(glass fiber reinforced polymer) composite beams embedded different pre-strained indented SMA wires were experimentally and numerically studied. The indentation SMA wire made by mechanical indentation method has better interface bonding strength than normal SMA wire. In this paper, the indented SMA wires acting as actuators, were embedded in a symmetrically GFRP laminated composite beam and located at the eccentric position of the laminate. The layering scheme of the laminated plate is as follows: [90°(4:1 fabric)/SMA/0°/0°/90°(4:1)]. The 0° direction is consistent with the direction of the axis of the SMA wire. The Finite element method is adopted to simulate the deformation of the beam with indented SMA wire in which the linear constitutive model of fully constrained SMA wires, together with considering their thermally-induced strain response, is used to describe the recoverable properties of SMA. The prediction from the numerical simulation agrees well with experimental measurements.