Thermo-mechanical behaviour of shape memory alloy reinforced composite laminate (Ni–Ti/glass-fibre/epoxy)

The thermo-mechanical behaviour of a shape memory alloy reinforced composite (SMARC) laminated plate (Ni–48.8Ti/Glass-fibre/Epoxy) was studied. A theoretical frame of the constitutive law was first proposed using irreversible thermodynamics. Expressions were derived in details in terms of some approximations based on meso-mechanics. Typical experiments, including uniaxial tension, restrained recovery, free recovery tests, etc., were carried out to determine the material coefficients. The results obtained include the constitutive relationship between stress and strain, the expression of entropy, and the dependence of the effective “elastic” coefficients on temperature.