• Wojciechowski, Stefan
• Boczkowska, Anna

Abstract

<p>Synthetic overview of the state of knowledge in the field of intelligent materials will be made. Interest in intelligent materials has been growing rapidly from the late 1980 ties of the XX c. One can state that they have currently become an individual group of materials. In the English language literature the terminology varies, two terms coexist: "intelligent materials" and "smart materials", however sometimes they are also called "adaptive materials". On a basis of literature survey, as the most important intelligent materials, shape memory alloys, ceramic piezoelectric materials, magnetostrictive materials, rheological fluids, intelligent polymers and its composites have been selected. Interest in exhibiting intelligent behavior of polymers appeared much latter than it was in the case of metallic or ceramic intelligent materials. Within last two decades the role of intelligent polymers grew rapidly due to the promising results of research proving that some polymers show properties useful for practical applications. Available scientific data indicates that current level of knowledge on intelligent polymers varies substantially and very basic reports appear parallel to much matured and advanced developments, which are ready for implementations. The second part of the paper brings brief analysis of the scope of the Smart Structures / NDE Joint SPIE Conference, held at San Diego in March 2004.</p>

Topics

• polymer
• composite
• ceramic
• piezoelectric material