Smart Material Systems and MEMS

Smart technology is a progressive field that is currently being used to address many challenges in aerospace, automotive, civil, mechanical, biomedical and communication engineering disciplines. Influenced by biological systems, smart materials are often attached to or embedded into structural systems to enable them to sense disturbances, process the information and react to it. This therefore improves the overall reliability, efficiency and sustainability of a system or structure. Now, miniaturisation has resulted in faster devices with reduced fabrication costs and the possibility of integration with electronics, thereby simplifying systems and reducing the power requirements. This book presents a unified treatment of the design and modelling of smart material systems and Micro–Electro–Mechanical Systems (MEMS), addressing both fabrication issues and outlining important potential application areas for the technology. With numerous case studies and illustrative examples, Varadan...