Thermo-Electro-Mechanical Modeling of SMA–Piezoelectric Adaptive Structures Using MATLAB

Abstract

This paper presents a MATLAB-based study of smart materials, focusing on Shape Memory Alloys (SMA) and piezoelectric materials and their combined behavior in adaptive structures. SMA shows large deformation due to temperature changes, while piezoelectric materials produce small and precise deformation when voltage is applied. In this work, mathematical models for both materials are developed and simulated to understand their behavior. The stress–strain and displacement–temperature results clearly show the nonlinear response of SMA, while the displacement–voltage results confirm the linear behavior of piezoelectric materials. A coupled model is also studied to analyze the combined effect of temperature and voltage. The results show that SMA provides the main deformation, and the piezoelectric material adds fine control. A table is used to clearly present this combined behavior. Overall, the study shows that combining these materials can improve the performance of adaptive structures in applications like aerospace, robotics, and vibration control systems.