Comportamento térmico e mecânico de molas helicoidais de liga com memória de forma Ni-Ti obtidas por fundição de precisão.

Abstract

In many situations of design in mechanical systems one wants rigidity and at the same time a certain flexibility. In these cases, the springs are interesting elements, so these components were well studied. In parallel, in order to expand possibilities, new materials have been developed, such as functional materials, such as shape memory alloys (LMF). Helical springs made from LMF are promising components for applications such as actuators / sensors, for the ability to recover large elastic and pseudo-plastic deformations. Currently, these components are mostly obtained through wire forming, either cold or hot, and have consolidated application in the biomedical field, but in the industrial field commercial applications are still limited. In this scenario, using precision casting for this type of component can expand the possibilities and increase the applications in several sectors. On the other hand, it is of broad interest to understand the relation between the mechanical properties and the geometric configurations of these elements. In this context, the main objective of this work is the thermal and mechanical characterization of LMF Ni-Ti helical springs (MLMFNiTi) with different configurations, produced by the invesment casting process, using induction fusion with centrifugal injection (FIC) in ceramic molds. The obtained results showed that the produced springs presented phase transformation characteristic of the phenomena of superelasticity (SE). Through the mechanical tests it was found that the springs generally supported deformations of up to 70%. The dimensional parameters influenced the mechanical behavior for which the step increase, and the wire diameter increased the applied force to subject the springs to the same deformations. Thus, the springs produced have functional characteristics suitable to enhance industrial applications from LMF Ni-Ti.