SHAPE-MEMORY MATERIALS AS CONTROL ELEMENTS USED IN DOT BRAILLE ACTUATOR

The objective of this paper is to show a designing process for actuators that utilizes shape-memory materials. Analytical studies are carried out to design a dot actuator to be used in an electronic Braille display. Shape-memory materials are a relatively new group of smart materials that exhibit the transformation of their internal structures in solid state phases resulting from external mechanical or thermal excitation. This unique property shows up as three phenomena: one- and two-way memory effects as well as superelasticity, which all significantly influence the change of both the material properties and geometry. Hence, shape-memory materials are used as actuators effectively controlled by the above-mentioned types of excitation. The work presents the design guidelines for a proposed technical solution as well as the phenomenon utilized in the elaborated model of the actuator. The authors derived the mathematical descriptions for the proposed design configuration and an example of the calculations is shown. Moreover, the characteristics of the elaborated configuration are also discussed, taking into account the range of application areas.