I am new to SMA wires, but we are trying to use muscle wires to build accessible prosthetics. The muscle wires we are using have these characteristics: diameter 100mm, resistance of 126, pull force 143 g, activation at 70 C and cooling around 52-42 C, and a deformation of 3-5%. I was wondering if you guys have any tips where to start looking for designs. So far, I have seen using mesh type material and putting fans into the design itself, do you guys have any suggestions?
Attaching small heat sinks to the SMA wire or the surface near it can also help dissipate heat.
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ooo thank you for this!
(It's really annoying that the problem with using "muscle wires" is cooling them, rather than heating them up. After all, heating is easy! But then they need to cool while under the influence of a "restoring force", and that's much harder.)
Would not a quick pulse of cold compressed air cool them?
as user @aliarifat794 mentioned, heat sinks are a good idea.
i think copper is a good heat sink material because of its high thermal conductivity, but copper is also an excellent electrical conductor, which makes the cooling mechanism vulnerable to short circuits. i think that if the wires have black rubber insulation (because from a color standpoint, black has the highest thermal conductivity), a small thin copper sheet can be wrapped around the wire where it overheats the most, and connect it via copper wire to a copper heat sink. enameled copper wire (sometimes called speaker or magnet wire) may be good, its electrically insulated and still thermally conductive even through the thin enamel.
Won't heatsinking make them harder to heat up though ?
might freeze the wire, making it brittle. also, only works for short bursts at very high pressure depending on type of gas, storage mechanism, etc. unless its a compressed air can, it would be used to quickly.
Use a small air pump with room temperature air.
oh, that would work. especially if paired with a heat sink (modern computer cooling system design) i thought you meant something like one of those CO2 cartridges with ~700 psi. sorry if i came across as rude.
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