Shape memory materials, also known as "metal muscles" or "artificial muscles," have the ability to snap back into their original shape after being stretched, squashed, bent, or otherwise deformed. If ...

A German research team has prototyped an extraordinary heating/cooling system that stresses and unloads nickel-titanium "muscle wires" to create heated and cooled air at twice the efficiency of a heat ...

What is a shape memory alloy? Shape memory alloys or SMA's are metals that exhibit shape memory properties. The shape memory effect was first discovered in 1932 in a silver-cadmium alloy. It allows ...

The secret to how steel hardens and shape-memory alloys snap into place lies in rapid, atomic-scale shifts that scientists have struggled to observe in materials. Now, Cornell researchers are ...

The basis of the nickel-titanium shape memory alloy (SMA) class is the intermetallic equiatomic binary alloy NiTi. Thanks to its moderate solubility range, its composition can be changed, and it can ...

Imagine a world of shape-shifters. A surgeon inserts a small lump of plastic into an anesthetized patient and, like magic, it expands into a life-saving mesh tube that keeps a formerly clogged artery ...

A study led by Tohoku University, Iwate University, The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), National Astronomical Observation of Japan, Tokyo City University, and Kyoto University developed a ...

Scientists captured live action details of the phase transitions of shape memory alloys, giving them a better idea how to improve their properties for applications. Known to many as muscle wire or ...