Speaker
Description
Professor Rubén Santamarta Martínez from University of the Balearic Islands
Shape memory alloys (SMAs) are materials that remember their shape. Along our lectures, we will explore how and why they do it and will uncover the fascinating martensitic transformation that lets these metals switch between phases and recover large strains, giving rise to the shape memory effect and superelasticity. We will visualize how atoms rearrange, how crystal variants form, and how these microscopic mechanisms translate into powerful macroscopic responses. Along the way, we will examine the key functional properties that engineers rely on, and learn how techniques such as calorimetry, mechanical testing and diffraction reveal what is happening inside the material. We will compare major SMA families, especially NiTi, and see how composition and processing tune their behavior. The lecture concludes with real-world applications, from medical stents to aerospace actuators, showing how SMA science meets smart-device design. The goal is to give you an intuitive, mechanism-based understanding of what makes these materials unique and how they are used to solve practical problems.