JOURNAL OF

COMPOSITE
Article M AT E R I A L S
Journal of Composite Materials
2018, Vol. 52(8) 1089–1101
! The Author(s) 2017
Dynamic response of laminated Reprints and permissions:
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composite beam reinforced with shape DOI: 10.1177/0021998317722042
journals.sagepub.com/home/jcm
memory alloy wires subjected to low
velocity impact of multiple masses

SMR Khalili1,2 and A Saeedi1

Abstract
The response of laminated hybrid composite beam with embedded shape memory alloy wires subjected to impact of
multiple masses is analytically investigated. Two degree of freedom spring-mass system and Fourier series are used in
order to study the low velocity impact phenomenon on the resulting hybrid composite beam. A linearized contact law is
chosen to calculate the contact force history. The effect of pseudo elasticity of wires as well as the recovery stresses
generated in shape memory alloy wires due to shape memory effect is investigated. The beam is subjected to impactors
with various masses, radii, and initial velocities. Impacts are occurred on the top and/or bottom surface of the beam. The
effects of volume fraction of shape memory alloy wires, location of embedded wires, location of impacts and pre-strain in
shape memory alloy wires on the contact force history and the deflection curve of the beam are investigated. The
obtained results illustrated that embedding shape memory alloy wires in the laminated composite beam caused the
deflection of the beam to occur more local at the points of impact, in comparison with the beams without shape memory
alloy wires. Moreover, embedding 0.2 volume fraction of the shape memory alloy wires reduced the maximum deflection
of the beam subjected to impact of 2 impactor masses by 57% and 3 impactor masses (on both sides) by 12%. Pre-
straining the wires caused more reduction in deflection of the beam under impact loading.

Keywords
Shape memory alloy, laminated beam, multiple impact

Introduction
Shape memory alloys (SMAs), due to their unique
properties have been used to conduct various smart
structures in recent years. Shape memory effect
(SME) and pseudo-elasticity effect (PEE) are two
properties which make SMAs ideal candidates for rein-
forcing composite materials and producing smart
composite structures.1 The effect of SMAs in the
shape memory alloy reinforced composites (SMACs)
can be active or passive. In the former case,
pre-strained SMAs are placed into the structure and
activated by heating or electrical current which causes
generation of the recovery force in the SMAs due to
SME. In contrast, there is no activation in the latter
case and only PEE is responsible for improving the
mechanical properties of composite structure.
Impact behavior of composite structures has been
studied extensively by researchers in the past years.2–6
According to Olsson,4 low velocity impact is classified
into small mass and large mass impact according to the
ratio between the impactor and the target masses.
In the case of large mass impact, the behavior of the
impact is quasi static and can be modeled by spring-
mass systems. Khalili et al.7,8 modeled low velocity
impact and vibration of composite and sandwich
1
Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of Technology,
Tehran, Iran
2
Department of Applied Mechanics, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi,
New Delhi, India
Corresponding author:
SMR Khalili, Center of Excellence for Research in Advanced Materials and
Structures, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, K.N. Toosi University of
Technology, Pardis Street, Molassadra Avenue, Vanak Square, Tehran,
Iran.
Email: Khalili@kntu.ac.ir
1090
plates using higher-order theories. SMAs are used in
different shapes and dimensions in SMACs including
continuous wires, short fibers, fabrics, sheets, patches,
etc. In recent years, the mechanical properties of vari-
ous types of SMACs have been investigated. Paine and
Rogers9–11 studied low velocity impact response of
glass/epoxy and carbon/epoxy composites hybridized
with SMA layers. They reported significant enhance-
ment in the energy absorption of the hybrid compos-
ites. Tsoi et al.12 investigated the effect of pre-strained
SMA wires in glass/epoxy laminates. They studied the
effect of pre-strain, location and volume fraction of
SMA wires on the damage behavior of the resulting
composites. Birman et al.13 studied the effect of embed-
ding shape memory wires into the composite structures.
Their work exhibited that impact resistance of the
structure as well as total deformation of target was
enhanced during low velocity impact. Similar results
were reported by Roh et al.14,15. Khalili et al.16,17 devel-
oped a complete model for investigating effective par-
ameters of multi layered smart composite plates
subjected to low velocity impact. They classified the
stiffness of the structure into two categories including
essential and acquired stiffness and studied the effect of
SMA wires on the latter case. More recently,
Sofocleous et al.18 investigated the effect of combined
SMA wires and carbon nanotubes reinforcements on
the impact behavior of carbon fiber reinforced epoxy
composites. The obtained results showed that SMA
wires improved the energy absorption of the composite
and presence of the carbon nanotubes resulted in
damage initiation at higher depth of impact penetra-
tion. Riccio et al.19 performed a non-linear numerical
study on the composite plates to characterize the
damage under low velocity impact. Riccio et al.20 also
studied the behavior of the stiffened composite panels
subjected to low velocity impact. They performed a
sensitivity analysis on the accuracy of the results con-
sidering the effect of the model approximation.
Composite structures can be subjected to the impact
of multiple masses during their life time. As an example,
the airplane structure can be subjected to the impact by
runway debris or hailstones or drop of small mass tools.
This type of impact causes multi-site damage in the
structure. Latinen et al.21 conducted finite element ana-
lysis to study multiple successive impacts on the com-
posite laminates using commercially available finite
element program MSC/NASTRAN. Jone et al.22 per-
formed an experimental method to determine the resi-
dual strength of graphite/epoxy laminated composite
subjected to multiple impacts. They presented a repair
methodology on the damaged composite structures.
Found et al.23 investigated the damage caused by
repeated impacts on the carbon fiber reinforced poly-
mer (CFRP) experimentally. They studied the energy of
Journal of Composite Materials 52(8)
each impact on the damage initiation in the circularly
clamped CFRP plates. Chakraborty et al.24 performed
a 3D finite element analysis in order to investigate the
delamination of graphite/epoxy composites subjected to
the repeated impacts of cylindrical impactors. They
found that the delamination in the composite and the
contact force are affected significantly by the time inter-
vals between successive impacts. Experimental investi-
gations were carried out by Azouaoui et al.25 to study
the impact response of cross ply glass/epoxy laminates
subjected to the repeated low velocity impacts. They
presented a relation between damage evolution and
number of impacts that indicated the importance of
the first impacts. Atas et al.26 presented an experimental
investigation on the repeated impacts on glass/epoxy
composites and investigated the effect of thickness of
the composite plate on the impact response of the
beam. They developed some equations in order to pre-
dict the number of impacts for perforation without test-
ing. There are a few research works that investigated the
response of composite structures to the simultaneous
impact of multiple masses. Lam et al.27 modeled the
response of composite beam to the impact of multiple
masses using higher-order theory. Malekzadeh et al.28
studied the dynamic response of composite sandwich
panel with flexible core subjected to the impact of mul-
tiple masses using higher-order sandwich plate the-
ory and Hamilton’s principle. Damanpack et al.29
presented a finite element formulation for impact ana-
lysis of sandwich beams subjected to simultaneous mul-
tiple impacts. They used high-order theory and
investigated various parameters on the response of the
sandwich beam.
In the present paper, the effect of embedding SMA
wires into the laminated composite beam on the impact
behavior of the beam is studied. The beam is subjected
to impact of multiple masses with different initial velo-
cities, masses and locations on both sides. Two degree
of freedom (TDOF) spring-mass system is utilized in
order to model the force history diagram. Both cases
of PEE and SMEs of the wires are considered. The
effect of various parameters such as impactor proper-
ties, target properties, temperature change, volume
fraction and pre-strain of SMA wires are also studied.
Method of analytical modeling
Governing equations
A schematic diagram of the laminated beam subjected
to the impact of multiple masses is shown in Figure 1.
Displacement field for the beam according to the
first-order shear deformation theory is presented by
equation (1). The bonding between the SMA wires
and the composite is assumed to be perfect and the
Khalili and Saeedi 1091

Constitutive equations
Constitutive equations for the SMACs are given in
equations (5).31,32 N and M are the stress and
moment resultants, respectively. Superscript (r) repre-
sents the recovery stress resultants and moments,
superscript (T) represents the thermal stress resultants
and moments and "0 ,  are the mid plane strain and
curvature, respectively.
   0  ( i )

N Aij Bij " N
Figure 1. Laminated hybrid beam subjected to impact of mul- ¼ þ
M Bij Dij  Mi
tiple masses.  i  r  ð5Þ
N N  NT
¼ ; i, j ¼ 1, 2, 6
debonding between the SMA wires and the matrix Mi Mr  MT
is not taken into account in the present formulation.
In the symmetric cross ply laminate:
uðx, zÞ ¼ u0 ðx, tÞ þ z x ðx, tÞ
vð y, zÞ ¼ 0 ð1Þ Bij ¼ Mi ¼ Mr zMT ¼ 0 ð6Þ
wðx, zÞ ¼ w0 ðx, tÞ and

where u0 and w0 are displacement components of the NTx ¼ ðQm c m c

11 l þ Q12 t Þkcx hx T
beam in x and z directions and x ¼ @u@z : In the particu-
Z h=2
ð7Þ
lar case of cross ply symmetric orthotropic laminate Nrx ¼ ksx rðkÞ dz
where some of the coefficients are eliminated h=2

(A16 ¼ A26 ¼ D16 ¼ D26 ¼ Bij ¼ 0) governing equation

are reduced to equations (2). In equation (7), T is the temperature change and
ksx is the volume fraction of SMA wires in the plies
bD11 x , xx  bksh A55 x  bksh A55 w, x ¼ I € x along x direction. cl and ct are the thermal expansion
ð2Þ coefficients along longitudinal and transverse direction
bksh A55 x, x þ ðbksh A55 þ Nx Þw, xx þ q ¼  A w€
of the fibers in the composite. Superscript k is the
where Nx, ksh, A, and b are the stress resultants in x number of the layer with embedded SMA wire and
direction, shear correction factor, cross section area can vary between 1 and Ntotal (total number of the
and width of the laminated composite beam, respect- layers in the laminate). kcx is the volume fraction of
ively. q is the impact load and A55, D11,  and I are the the matrix and is obtained from equation (8).
laminate properties as follow:
kcx ¼ 1  ksx ð8Þ
Z h=2  
ð, IÞ ¼ 0 1, z2 dz r is the recovery stress in the SMA wires and can be
h=2
calculated from equation (9).
X
N
A55 ¼ Q55 ðzk  zk1 Þ ð3Þ
k¼1
  
YðÞSres aA ðkÞ
X
N rðkÞ
¼ 1  cos aA ðT  As Þ  
2 CA r
D11 ¼ ð1=3Þ Q11 ðz3k  z3k1 Þ ð9Þ

k¼1 aA ¼
Af  As
0 is the density of each layer, h is the total thickness of
the laminate, and Qij are the components of laminate where Sres is the pre-strain (the strain generated in pre-
stiffness matrix.30 For a simply supported beam with stressed SMA) in the SMA wire, As and Af are the
length L, boundary conditions are presented in equa- austenite start and austenite finish temperatures,
tions (4). respectively. In order to generate recovery stress in
the wires, the temperature should be increased above
w¼ x, x¼ 0; at x ¼ 0, L ð4Þ As. CA is the slope of the stress–temperature diagram
for the SMA wires. YðÞ is the Young’s modulus of the
1092 Journal of Composite Materials 52(8)

SMA wires and is assumed to be a linear function of the
martensite volume fraction ðÞ as follow:33
YðÞ ¼ YA þ ðYM  YA Þ
where Fmi is the maximum predicted contact force for
each impactor and Kic is the contact stiffness in the
improved Hertzian contact law and can be defined as
equation (13).30
ð10Þ

where YA and YM are the Young’s moduli of SMA in 4 R1=2

Kic ¼ 2
i
ð13Þ
the austenite and martensite phases, respectively. 3 ð1  2i =E2i Þ þ ð1=E1 Þ

Impact force
TDOF spring-mass model is used in order to achieve
the contact force history as shown in Figure 2. For each
impact, two masses and two springs are required. The
equations of motion are presented in equations (11).
Ri, E2i, and 2i are the radius, Young’s modulus and
Poisson’s ratio of each impactor, respectively, and E1 is
the stiffness of the laminated beam. It is worth men-
tioning that according to the non-isotropic behavior of
the composites, E1 is the transverse stiffness of the top
lamina in the composite.

m1 z€1i ¼ Ki1 zi1  Ki2 ðzi1  zi2 Þ

ð11Þ Deflection of the beam
mi2 z€2i ¼ Ki2 ðzi2  zi1 Þ
In this section, the solution of the force history and
deflection of the beam is obtained analytically using
m1 represents the mass of the composite beam and mi2 Fourier series. Shear rotation, transverse deflection
represents the mass of each impactor. zi1 and zi2 are the and transverse load are expanded as equations (14).
displacements of the beam and each impactor at the These equations satisfy the boundary conditions in
impact point, respectively. Ki1 is the equivalent stiffness equations (4).
of the beam at the location of impact (xi). In the present
paper, the linearized contact law was used for calculat- X
1 m
ing the contact force, instead of the non-linear Hertzian x ðx, tÞ ¼ Am ðtÞ cos x
m¼1
a
contact law. Ki2 is the linearized contact stiffness m
X1
between the impactor and the beam according to wðx, tÞ ¼ Wm ðtÞ sin x ð14Þ
Choi’s model34 presented in equation (12). m¼1
a
X m
qðx, tÞ ¼ Pm ðtÞ sin x
Fi ðtÞ ¼ Ki2 i ðtÞ m
a
ð12Þ
Ki2 ¼ Fim 1=3Kic 2=3; i ðtÞ ¼ zi1  zi2 For a concentrated transverse load at point xc, the
time dependent variable Pm(t) is defined in equation
(15). xc is the location of the applied concentrated
force on the beam and is measured from the end sup-
port of the beam.

2FðtÞ m
Pm ðtÞ ¼ sin xc ð15Þ
L a

Substituting equations (14) into equation (2) and

ignoring the rotary inertia yields:

    
L11 L12 Am ðtÞ 0
¼
L12 L22 Wm ðtÞ Pm ðtÞ  hW € m ðtÞ
m 2
L11 ¼ bD11 þ bksh A55
a m ð16Þ
L12 ¼ L21 ¼ bksh A55
a
m 2
L22 ¼ ðksh b A55 þ Nx Þ
a
Figure 2. Two degree of freedom spring-mass model.
Khalili and Saeedi
System of equations (16) can be reduced to equation
(17) as follows:
€ m ðtÞ þ !2 Wm ðtÞ ¼ Pm ðtÞ
W
m supported beam.
A
ð17Þ
L11 L22  L212
!2m ¼
AL11
where !m denotes the fundamental natural frequencies
of the beam. Now the equivalent stiffness of the beam
at the point of impact (K1) can be obtained from equa-
tion (18) and be substituted in equation (11):
K1 ¼ m1 :!21 ð18Þ
Results and discussion
Validation of the results
In this section, the accuracy of the model is validated
using some examples in multiple steps. Using some
examples, the results which are obtained from the
present model, are compared with the previously pub-
lished results in the literature. First, a single impact
on a composite beam without SMA wires is investi-
gated in order to validate the impact force and deflec-
tion for the single impact problem. In the next step,
for validating the effect of SMA wires, the natural
frequency of the composite beams with and without
embedded SMA wires are considered. The effect of
different levels of pre-strain in the wires and the
SMA wires volume fraction is verified using pub-
lished experimental and theoretical results. At last
step, the force and deflection of the composite
beam subjected to the impact of multiple masses is
considered and the present results are validated using
an indirect method.
Example 1. Single impact on composite beam
In this example for validating the impact response of
the model, a comparison is done between the results
of the present method and the results of the impact
of composite beam by Yigit et al.35 They used a
linearized contact law based on the elastic–plastic
contact in order to yield the contact response. The
properties of the impactor and the beam are pre-
sented in Table 1. Figures 3 and 4 show the contact
force history and displacement response of the com-
posite beam, respectively. In the present case, local
indentation is negligible, and the response is quasi
static. As can be seen in these figures, the results
are in good agreement and the maximum discrepancy
is occurred in the case of displacement result and is
about 4.2%.
1093
Table 1. Propertie of the impactor and beam in example 1.35
Structure Properties
Beam [0/90/0/90/0]s, Carbon/epoxy, simply
Length: 200 mm
Width: 20 mm
Thickness: 4 mm
E11 ¼ 120 GPa, E22 ¼ 7.9 GPa,
G12 ¼ G23 ¼ 5.5 GPa
12 ¼ 23 ¼ 0.3,  ¼ 1580 kg/m2
Impactor  ¼ 7860 kg/m3, m ¼ 4 kg, impact
velocity ¼ 3 m/s
Example 2. Natural frequencies of composite beam
To validate the free vibration of composite beam, a
simply supported orthotropic beam [00] made of
carbon/epoxy without SMA wires is considered. The
properties of the beam are listed in Table 2.
Dimensions of the beam are as follows:
Length ¼ 762 mm, width ¼ 15:2 mm, height ¼ 6:35 mm
Three natural frequencies of the composite beam are
compared with Rao and Ganean36 in Table 3. They
used finite element method based on higher order
shear deformation theory to investigate the harmonic
response of the tapered composite beams. In the present
study in order to eliminate the effect of SMA wires,
volume fraction of SMA is set to zero. Results
showed the maximum of 3.8% discrepancy in the nat-
ural frequencies. The discrepancy is due to ignoring the
rotating inertia in the present method.
Example 3. Natural frequency of composite beam
with embedded SMA wires
The effect of recovery forces of SMA wires on natural
frequency of the laminated hybrid beam at various pre-
strains are compared with Tsai et al.37 Table 4 repre-
sents the first natural frequency of SMAC beam with
0.1%, 0.2%, and 0.3% pre-strain, respectively. The
agreement between the results is good as can be seen
in Table 4 and the maximum discrepancy is 9.3%.
The volume fraction of the SMA wires in the beam is
another effective parameter on the natural frequency of
the SMA reinforced composite beams. Lau38 investi-
gated the natural frequencies of the composite beam
with embedded SMA wires, experimentally and theor-
etically. The mechanical properties of the SMA wires
and the glass/epoxy composite are presented in Table 5.
The diameter of the SMA wires is 0.5 mm. The effect of
1094 Journal of Composite Materials 52(8)

Figure 3. Contact force history of composite beam subjected to low velocity impact (example 1).

Figure 4. Displacement response of composite beam subjected to low velocity impact (example 1).

Table 2. Properties of composite beam in example 2.36 Table 3. Results of natural frequencies of composite laminated
beam.
E1 E2 ¼ E3 G12 ¼ G13 G23 
(N/m2) (N/m2) (N/m2) (N/m2) 12 (kg/m3) Present Rao and
method Ganesan36 Error (%)
144.8e9 9.65e9 4.14e9 3.45e9 0.3 1389.23
First (Hz) 52.9914 51 3.76
Second (Hz) 211.0011 203 3.79
SMA wires volume fraction (no. of wires) on the nor- Third (Hz) 471.2 454 3.65
malized natural frequency of the simply supported
beam is illustrated in Figure 5. The normalized natural
frequency of the beam is defined as the ratio of the
natural frequency of the SMA reinforced beam and
that of the beam without SMA wires. The results
Example 4. Multiple impacts on the composite beam
showed that increase in No. of SMA wires, caused Validation of the results for multiple impact response is
reduction in the natural frequency of the composite performed using an indirect method presented by
beam. This is due to the increase in the density of the Lam,27 by comparing the responses of two cases includ-
composite, in higher volume fractions of the SMA ing the response of double small masses impact and the
wires, which has a reductive effect on the natural fre- response of a single small mass impact under the point
quency of the composite, according to equation (17). of impact with identical locations on the beam. In this
The discrepancy between the results is 4.2% for com- regards, only half portion of the beam can be con-
posite beam reinforced with 20 SMA wires. sidered when the material properties, geometry and
Khalili and Saeedi 1095

Table 4. Non-dimensional first natural frequency of SMAC obtained from present and Tsai et al.37

Pre-strain

Temperature 0.10% 0.20% 0.30%

Present method Tsai-Chen37 Present method Tsai-Chen37 Present method Tsai-Chen37
40 C 18.46 20.05 20.72 21.89 22.05 24.32

Table 5. Mechanical properties of the SMA wire and glass/ force history in two cases at the impact point a/3. As
epoxy composites.38 can be seen in Figure 6, the force and the deflection
histories are very close to each other.
Material Properties

SMA wires Martensite tensile modulus: 25 GPa

Austenite tensile modulus: 50 GPa
Density: 6450 kg/m3
Transformation temperatures: Mf ¼ 25 C,
Ms ¼ 40 C, As ¼ 48 C, Af ¼ 55 C
Glass/epoxy Tensile modulus E1 ¼ 12 GPa
composite Density ¼ 1800 kg/m3
1.1
Normilized first natural frequency
Effect of SMA volume fraction
In the present paper, SMA wires are embedded parallel
to the fiber orientation inside the laminate. The volume
fractions of SMA wires are considered to be 0, 0.05, 0.1,
and 0.2. The wires are embedded along longitudinal
axis of the beam. The variation in the thickness of the
laminate (or volume fraction of the glass fibers) in the
case of large diameters of the SMA wires is not con-
sidered in the present paper. To investigate the effect of
SMA wires volume fraction on the impact response of

1
0.9
0.8
0.7
0.6
0.5
0 5 10
No. of SMA wires
Figure 5. Variation of the normalized first natural frequency of
the composite beam with number of SMA wires.
SMA: shape memory alloy.
boundary conditions are symmetric about the mid-span
of the beam. Two cases of impact on composite beam
are assumed as follows. In case 1, the fully simply sup-
ported beam subjected to two impactors acting on
x1 ¼ a/3 and x2 ¼ 2a/3, where the parameter ‘‘a’’ is the
length of the simply supported beam measured from
the end support. The composite beam in this example
has no embedded SMA wires. Each impactor has
0.05 kg mass and an initial velocity of 2 m/s. Case 2
consists of the beam subjected to single impact at
x ¼ a/3. Impactor properties in case 2 are same as
those in case 1. Case 2 is the symmetric portion of
case 1 with this definition, therefore, the impact force
and deflection at the impact location in cases 1 and 2
should be the same. Figure 6(a), shows the contact
the composite beam, the beam is subjected to two
impactors at locations x1 ¼ a/6 and x2 ¼ 5a/6. SMA
wires are embedded in the mid-layer of the composite
beam. The properties of composite beam and the
Lau [38] impactors are listed in Table 6. Figure 7 shows the con-
tact force history for the same impact. Due to the sym-
Present model
metry, the contact force histories for both impactors
are the same, and therefore only the force history for
one of impactors is shown in Figure 7. It can be seen
15 20 from Figure 7 that increasing the volume fraction of
SMA wires in the laminated beam, caused the max-
imum contact force to increase and the impact time
to decrease. Similar trends for the contact force and
duration time have been reported by Khalili et al.39 in
doubly curved panels with embedded SMA wires under
low velocity impact. Maximum contact force is 23.94 N
for composite beam without SMA wires and increased
to 44.38 N for hybrid beam with 0.2 volume fraction
SMA wires. This is due to the change in the stiffness of
the composite beam by embedding SMA wires. The
improvement in the stiffness of the beam is due to
embedding SMA wires during manufacturing process
which influences the essential stiffness and the recovery
forces in the SMA wires which enhances the acquired
stiffness of the laminated beam.30 Figure 8 represents
the deflection of the beam at the very short moment
after impact (20 ms) and Figure 9, shows the maximum
deflection of the beam at the time when the maximum
contact force occurs. The deflection curves are symmet-
ric due to the symmetry conditions of the impactors
and the beam. As can be seen in Figure 9, maximum
1096 Journal of Composite Materials 52(8)

Figure 6. (a) Contact force history and (b) deflection time history for impact on the beam in case 1 and case 2.

Table 6. Properties of impactor, SMA wires and laminated is more possibility for damage) but on the other hand,
composite beam. SMA wires cause the deflection of the beam to decrease
and deformation of the beam to suppress faster. The
Beam properties Glass/Epoxy properties17,30
deFection decrease can be an indication of the increase
Length: 300 mm E11 ¼ 23.062 GPa; in the structural strength against impact.30
E22 ¼ E33 ¼ 10.789 GPa
Width: 20 mm G13 ¼ G12 ¼ 11.92 GPa;
G23 ¼ 4.68 GPa
Effect of SMA location
Stacking sequence: 12 ¼ 13 ¼ 23 ¼ 0.344 In this section, the effect of the location of SMA wires
[0/90/0/90/0]s in the laminate is investigated. The beam is subjected to
two impactors as mentioned in section ‘‘Effect of SMA
Ply thickness: 0.269 mm  ¼ 1796 kg/m3
volume fraction’’. Two cases are studied. In case 1, the
Impactor properties SMA wires properties30
wires are embedded in the mid-layer of the composite.
E ¼ 207 GPa, ¼ 0.30 Diameter of the wires: In case 2, the wires are embedded in the top and bottom
0.2 mm
layers of laminated composite. The volume fraction of
 ¼ 7800 kg/m3, mass ¼ 0.1 kg E ¼ 70 GPa, G ¼ 26.32 GPa the SMA wires in both cases is 0.2. Figure 10 shows the
Tip diameter ¼ 0.0127 m ¼ 0.33,  ¼ 6500 kg/m3 contact force response of the composite beam. As can
Impactor velocity ¼ 2.00 m/s  r ¼ 220 MPa at T ¼ 39 C be seen in Figure 10 the location of the SMA wires in
the laminate does not have significant effect on contact
force history. Deflection of the beam also does not
deflection of the beam significantly reduced by increas- show any variation by changing the location of SMA
ing SMA wires volume fraction. By embedding 0.1 and wires as shown in Figure 11. The recovery forces in
0.2 SMA volume fractions, 38% and 62% reduction in SMA wires are same in both cases, so the acquired
the deflection occurred, respectively. By increasing the stiffness of the beam remains constant. Changing the
maximum contact force and reduction of duration time, location of the wires causes the essential stiffness to
the composite beam withstands higher shocking effect change. The results show that in these two cases, the
(the energy conversion period is less and therefore there acquired stiffness plays the major role on the impact
Khalili and Saeedi 1097

Figure 7. Contact force history of composite beam subjected to two simultaneous impacts with different SMA volume fractions.
SMA: shape memory alloy.

Figure 8. Deflection of the composite beam subjected to two simultaneous impacts with different SMA volume fractions at impact
points at 20 ms after impact.
SMA: shape memory alloy.

response of the beam. It is worth to mention that in

both cases SMA wires are embedded in 0o layers along
longitudinal direction of the fibers. Placement of SMA
wires orthogonal to 0o fibers will create a resin rich
region due to the fiber displacement to accommodate
the wires.40
Effect of pre-strain of SMA wires
Applying pre-tension in SMA wires and activating
them by the temperature change produces recovery
force in the wires. The induced recovery force affects
the impact response of the hybrid beam. Various
1098
Figure 9. Deflection of the composite beam subjected to two simultaneous impacts with different SMA volume fractions at impact
points at maximum impact time.
SMA: shape memory alloy.
Figure 10. Contact force history for laminated beam subjected
to two impactors considering different SMA locations.
SMA: shape memory alloy.
pre-strains are applied to SMA wires and the impact
properties are investigated. The volume fraction of
SMA wires is 0.2 and the wires are embedded in the
mid-layer of the beam. The temperature change is 40 C
and 0.1%, 0.2%, and 0.3% pre-strains are applied to
the wires. Recovery forces due to different pre-strains
are calculated by equation (9). The generated force due
to pre-strain in the wires and temperature change is
correspond to SME of the SMAs. In the case of no
Journal of Composite Materials 52(8)
Figure 11. Maximum deflection of laminated beam subjected
to two impactors considering different SMA locations.
SMA: shape memory alloy.
pre-strain, only elastic modulus of the composite is
affected by the embedded SMA wires (PEE). The recov-
ery forces in various pre-strains are listed in Table 7.
Higher pre-strain levels produce larger recovery forces.
Figure 12 demonstrates the deflection of laminated
composite beam with various pre-strains of SMA
wires subjected to impact of two masses at a/6 and
5a/6 on the top surface of the beam. The properties
and location of the impactors are similar to section
Khalili and Saeedi 1099

Table 7. Recovery forces for SMA wires with various ‘‘Effect of SMA volume fraction’’. The volume fraction
pre-strains. of SMA wires is 0.2 and the wires are embedded in the
mid-layer of composite beam. The results show that the
Recovery
Pre-strain (%) stress (MPa) recovery forces decreased the maximum deflection of
the beam. As can be seen in Figure 12, 0.1% pre-
0 0 strain caused 35% reduction in maximum deflection
0.1 58.7 in comparison with hybrid beam without pre-strain.
0.2 89.81 In 0.5% pre-strain of SMA wires, the reduction in
0.5 126.2 deflection of the beam is 56%. The reason is that the
stress recovery which is generated due to the thermal
loading increases the stiffness of SMA hybrid compos-
ites and hence improves the impact response of the
resulting composite. When the SMA wires are pre-
strained and activated, the essential stiffness of the
beam remains constant, while the acquired stiffness of
the activated beam increases, as a result, the total stiff-
ness of the beam is improved. Moreover, at higher pre-
strain levels in the SMA wires, the deflection curve
becomes flatter in comparison with the deflection
curve for lower pre-strains in the SMA wires. This indi-
cates that pre-straining the embedded SMA wires in the
laminated beam causes the deflection response to be
more local at the point of impact, and at the other
points, specially, the points between the two impactors
the effect is much less, hence the deflection curve of the
composite beam becomes flatter.

Effect of impact locations

In this section, it is assumed that the beam is subjected
Figure 12. Maximum deflection of the composite beam sub- to various numbers of the impactors with arbitrary
jected to two impactors with various pre-strains in SMA wires. locations. Impacts can occur on top and/or bottom sur-
SMA: shape memory alloy. faces of the beam. To investigate the effect of the

Figure 13. Maximum deflection of the composite beam subjected to various numbers of impactors on the top and the bottom
surfaces.
1100
impact location, three different cases are studied. In
case 1, one impact occurs at a/6 on the top surface of
the beam. In case 2, the beam is subjected to two impac-
tors at a/6 and 5a/6 on the top surface. The effect of
simultaneously three impactors at a/6 and 5a/6 on the
top surface and at a/2 on the bottom surface is investi-
gated in case 3. In all cases, the SMA volume fraction is
0.2 and the wires are embedded in the mid-layer of the
laminated beam. Figure 13 shows the deflection of the
beam in these three cases. For comparison, the results
of composite beam without SMA wires are also pre-
sented. As can be seen in Figure 13, the maximum
deflection of the beam in case 1 is decreased by 42%
by embedding 0.2 volume fraction of SMA wires.
Moreover, the occurrence of the maximum deflection
is shifted to the contact point. It means that the pres-
ence of SMA wires causes the deflection of the beam to
occur relatively local at the point of impact and at the
other points of the beam the deflections are less. The
deflection of the beam is increased in case 2 in compari-
son with case 1. Also the deflection curve is symmetric
in case 2 due to the symmetry condition of the loads
and the geometry, despite of the deflection curve in case
1. The reduction in deflection due to SMA wires is 57%
in case 2. As can be seen in Figure 13, the presence of
SMA wires is more effective when the deflection of the
beam is greater. The deflection of the beam is
significantly decreased in case 3 which shows that sim-
ultaneous impact on both sides of the beam causes dif-
ferent deflection curves and reduction of the deflection
in the beam. Similar to case 1, embedding SMA wires
causes more local deflection at the impact point in the
beam. However, 12% reduction of deflection is
obtained by embedding 0.2 volume fraction of SMA
wires in case 3.
Conclusion
The main novelty of the present paper is to study the
effect of multiple impacts on the SMA reinforced com-
posite beams with various locations, masses, and velo-
cities, which has been less studied in the previously
published investigation. In this regards, the main con-
clusions are as follow:
– The presented model is in good agreement with the
experimental and theoretical results of the previously
published investigations on the dynamic behavior of
SMA reinforced composites.
– The results of the research demonstrated that
embedding 0.2 volume fraction of SMA wires in
composite beam, increases the maximum contact
force by 85%. A 62% reduction in the deflection
of the beam was also obtained by embedding 0.2
volume fraction of the SMA wires.
Journal of Composite Materials 52(8)
– Applying pre-strain in SMA wires produced recov-
ery forces due to SME and as a result deflection of
the beam decreases. 56% reduction in the deflection
of the beam was obtained by pre-straining the SMA
wires by 0.5%.
– Presence of SMA wires causes the deflection of the
beam to occur relatively local at the point of impact.
Moreover, Simultaneous impact on both sides of the
beam produces smaller deflection in comparison
with single side impact due to superposing the
response of each impactor.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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