A numerical analysis of the buckling and postbuckling behavior of laminated composite shells with embedded shape memory alloy wire actuators

The numerical simulation analyses were performed on the buckling and postbuckling behavior of laminated composite shells with embedded shape memory alloy (SMA) wires. These analyses using ABAQUS code were conducted to investigate the effect of embedded SMA wires on the characteristics of buckling and postbuckling caused by external and thermal loads. The nonlinear buckling analysis showed that the activation of eccentrically embedded SMA wires increased the critical buckling load when phase transformation of SMA wires occurred. The activated SMA wires embedded in the direction of buckling resulted in a sudden increase of the critical buckling load when both edges were simply supported. However, activated SMA wires embedded in the opposite direction of buckling, resulted in a sudden decrease of the buckling load. The thermal buckling analyses of the composite shells with embedded SMA wires showed that the critical buckling temperature increased and the thermal buckling deformation decreased by using the activation force of embedded SMA wire actuators.