• Sittner, Petr
• Payan, Yohan
• Connesson, Nathanaël
• Heller, Ludek
• Chagnon, Grégory
• Tissot, François
• Rey, Thierry
• Favier, Denis

Abstract

Over the past few years, thin NiTi wires textiles have received increasing attention. The opportunity to create new kind of composites using NiTi textiles inserted in elastomer matrixes has emerged. Villa et al. [1] introduced thin NiTi wires into Lycra/PA textiles to obtain high rigidity and recovering strain textiles. Prototype of small diameter vascular prosthesis made of a fibre reinforcement silicone material were proposed by Zidi and Cheref [2]. Coupling NiTi shape memory alloy textiles and silicone elastomer would allow a wide variety of mechanical behavior and controlled anisotropy, to reproduce, for example, mechanical behavior of softer tissues like oesophageal tissues [3]. Different studies have already been performed, for example including a unique thin NiTi wire into silicone elastomer matrix [4]. Yet, single wires inserted in polymer matrix were subjected to slip during loadings. Using textile rather than single wires could limit the textile slip inside the polymer thanks to interaction between the wires. For example, Heller et al. [5] molded a NiTi textile tube into a polymer matrix and analyzed the mechanical behavior of this composite. Two main research fields can be devised: using those composites as actuator or/and to mimic real biomaterials. A first goal in using those composites as actuators would be to increase its maximal strain. To increase the maximal strain, one might think about increasing length of NiTi wires. Therefore, the idea to use a preformed to snake-like shape NiTi textile has been introduced [6]. Yet, few studies deal about inclusion of a preformed NiTi textile into a silicone matrix. This study is a preliminary work to understand and model such a composite mechanical behavior. A NiTi textile is preformed in a specially designed device and heated at 450°C to print the parent shape to the textile. The Figure 1: Snake-like NiTi textile molded in silicone elastomer matrix

Topics

• impedance spectroscopy
• inclusion
• experiment
• composite
• biomaterials
• wire
• elastomer