Smart Materials and Structures

Book excerpt: Significant changes have occurred in materials science, including increasing demands on life extensions, and the reliability and exploitability of components, materials, and structures. These changes provide smart technologies with excellent application opportunities in aerospace, civil and electrical engineering, transportation, manufacturing, communications, defense, and medicine. Smart Materials and Structures presents an overview of current developments in the characterization and applications of materials and actuators, issues surrounding their control, and the integration of smart systems and technologies. This compendium provides a valuable synopsis of this rapidly expanding and topical research field for engineers, program managers, technologists, physicists, materials scientists, and mathematicians working to advance smart materials, research methods, their applications, and robotic technologies.