In order to satisfy the rising energy demands of global consumption, a new cleaner and renewable power source needs to be explored, conceptualized and developed. This paper intends to introduce an alternative source of energy by using piezoelectric material -a class of smart material. A piezoelectric road that will produce electricity from the stress experienced by the roads due to the movement...

Light controllable release of antinflammatory zinc ions by a smart multifunctional material composed of spiropyrans and single walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) is demonstrated. The exploitation of a number of complementary characterization techniques allows the investigation of both composition and performance of the multifunctional SP/SWNT nanomaterial developed. Moreover, its suitability for p...

The role that small particle accelerators play in the field of applications to Cultural Heritage (for material analysis and dating) is critically discussed also in comparison to other techniques, pointing out pros and cons. As to material analysis, some peculiarities of ion beam techniques may be now less unique than they were perhaps ten years ago, but these techniques can still reach unrivall...

The topology optimization method is used to find the distribution of material phases that extremizes an objective function (e.g., thermal expansion coefficient, piezoelectric coefficients etc) subject to constraints, such as elastic symmetry and volume fractions of the constituent phases, within a periodic base cell. The effective properties of the material structures are found using a numerica...

Magnetorheological elastomer (MRE) material consisting of a natural or synthetic rubber filled with micron sized iron particles is a smart material whose properties can be controlled by a magnetic field. In this paper, experimental study on the dynamic characteristics of an MRE core embedded sandwich beam is carried out. Frequency responses from experimental results on MRE cored sandwich beams ...

Recently, our modern society demands the portable electronic devices such as mobile phones, laptops, smart watches, etc. Such devices demand light weight, flexible, and low-cost energy storage systems. Among different energy storage systems, supercapacitor has been considered as one of the most potential energy storage systems. This has several significant merits such as high power density, lig...

Magnetic Shape Memory (MSM) actuators represent a new type of smart electromagnetic actuators where the MSM material elongates and contracts in a magnetic field. The MSM material has the ability to change its size or shape very fast and many million times repeatedly. Based on internally designed and produced Magnetic Shape Memory materials, the ETO GROUP has developed its new MAGNETOSHAPE® tech...

The demand for real-time or in situ structural health monitoring has stimulated efforts to integrate self and environmental sensing capabilities into structural composite materials. Essential to the application of smart composites is the issue of the mechanical coupling of the sensor to the host material. In this study various methods of embedding sensors within the host composite material are ...

By relying on specific DNA:DNA interactions as a "smart glue", we have assembled microparticles into a colloidal gel that can hold its shape. This gel can be extruded with a 3D printer to generate centimeter size objects. We show four aspects of this material: (1) The colloidal gel material holds its shape after extrusion. (2) The connectivity among the particles is controlled by the binding be...

Engineered Cementitious Composites (ECCs) are novel cement-based ultraductile materials which is crack resistant and undergoes strain hardening when loaded in tension. In particular, the material is piezoresistive with changes in electrical resistance correlated with mechanical strain. The unique electrical properties of ECC render them a smart material capable of measuring strain and the evolu...