Author Description

'Smart' materials can be attached to, or embedded into, structural systems to enable the structure to sense a change in the environment and respond to the ensuing stimulus accordingly. Actuators and sensors incorporating smart materials such as piezoelectric, magnetostrictive, electrostrictive, and shape memory alloys have been intensively developed. Such smart materials find tremendous applications ranging from active vibration control/suppression and precise positioning for manufacturing and machining, to devices for office equipment, automotive and biomedical areas. This book addresses fundamental and advanced materials issues related to smart structures including the research and development of new sensor and actuator materials, such as electro-/magnetorheological fluids and mechanochemical actuators. Both fundamentals and applications of smart materials are presented. Topics include: piezoelectrics; shape memory; actuator materials; magnetostrictive materials; and sensors and other materials.