Abstract

In this research, a macro-scale, phenomenological constitutive model for shape memory alloy (SMA) is used in conjunction with energy balance equations to study the evolution of temperature and deformation profiles seen in SMA wires. In this way, the general fully-coupled thermomechanical formula for resistive heating of an SMA wire-initial detwined martensite, leading to strain recovery on heating, is used and numerical results are obtained with use of "Meshless" methods which are rather new computational techniques that do not require the use of any connectivity concept, such as those used in finite element method (FEM); since only a cloud of nodes is required, the element free Galerkin (EFG) method  is particularly suitable for problems involving internal boundaries, geometry changes, etc. Comparisons between the results predicted by proposed EFG method and available reference solutions in the literature validate the method. A good agreement is obtained between the achieved results and the literature.

Key words: Shape memory alloy, meshless, element free Galerkin method, steady state response.