Smart Structures

Catalog description

Smart materials and structures can monitor their state of health, automatically heal internal fractures and adapt to environmental changes. Making structures smarter leads to engineering systems (e.g., aircraft, automotive and biomedical) that are lightweight, more aerodynamic, and have increased operation lifetimes. In this course, current approaches for designing and implementing smart structures in real-world applications will be reviewed. In addition, students will analyze constitutive equations that model the behavior of piezoelectric ceramics, electroactive polymers, and shape memory alloys. Hands on experiments will allow students to design their own smart structures. Students from various disciplines of engineering can benefit from this course. This course presumes the student is already familiar with basic mechanics of materials and introductory analysis of structures.