Smart Materials and Nanotechnology

Materials in Automotive and Construction Industries

Smart Materials give huge hope to automotive industries for their ability to incorporate intrinsic sensing and actuating capabilities into structural elements of vehicles. They have the ability to change shape, position, stiffness, fluid flow rate, damping in response to change in temperature, electric and magnetic field hence smart materials like piezoelectric ceramics, shape memory alloys, magnetostrictive materials, optical fibers, electrorheological fluids, magnetorheological fluids, conducting polymers and so on, find automotive applications as sensors, actuators and so on. Smart Materials are also researched in civil and structural engineering field to employ them in construction industries. Some such materials are carbon fibers, smart concrete, antimicrobial coatings, shape shifting metal and self-healing coatings to deliver functions like self-dimming and self-cleaning of glass, self-healing of construction materials etc.