• Rigamonti, D.
• Riva, Marco
• Zanetti, F.
• Villa, E.
• Zerbi, F. M.
• Passaretti, F.

Abstract

This paper wants to illustrate possible applications of Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) as functional devices for space and ground based application in Instrumentations for Astronomy. Thermal activated Shape Memory Alloys are materials able to recover their original shape, after an external deformation, if heated above a characteristic temperature. If the recovery of the shape is completely or partially prevented by the presence of constraints, the material can generate recovery stress. Thanks to this feature, these materials can be positively exploited in Smart Structures if properly embedded into host materials. Some technological processes developed for an ecient use of SMA-based actuators embedded in smart structures tailored to astronomical instrumentation will be presented here. Some possible modeling approaches of the actuators behavior will be addressed taking into account trade- offs between detailed analysis and overall performance prediction as a function of the computational time. The Material characterization procedure adopted for the constitutive laws implementation will be described as well. Deformable composite mirrors,1 opto-mechanical mounting with superelastic kinematic behavior and damping of launch loads onto optical element2 are feasible applications that will be deeply investigated in this paper.

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• composite