Investigation on thermo-mechanical behavior of SMA spring under the influence of different actuation medium

In this paper different actuation media and its impact on the morphology of structure of NiTi SMA, is presented. The functional properties of a NiTi component can be augmented by changing the energy source. With different actuation medium (electricity, hot water and laser), as the temperature reaches 30–80 °C, spring gets fully compressed for the first few cycles followed by loss in actuation. The actuation loss is then studied with different characterization methods such as scanning electron microscopy, thermo gravimetric analysis and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. With SEM results, it can be inferred that the energy source is not deteriorating the structure. Results observed from TGA shows high oxygen content at lower temperature limits with hot water actuation which suggest the need of conducting experiments in inert atmosphere, where as EDX throws light on chemical composition and gives the result in form of peaks.