Abstract

Reversible self-shaping behavior has been occurred with chemically crosslinked polymers and multi-layer structures while this behavior is difficultly realized for the fabric reinforced polymeric composites. In this work, a thin weft plain knitted fabric reinforced shape memory polymer composites (SMPCs) with reversible shape memory effect were developed. The effect of sizes, knitting densities and actuated temperatures on reversible shape memory behavior of SMPC was investigated. The results show that the maximum self-bending curvature of SMPCs is 35.8 m-1 and the shape recovery ratio reaches 82.2 %. A simplified finite element model was established to simulate and analyze the process of self-bending with heating and self-recovery with cooling of SMPC. Interestingly, the SMPC in wale direction (90°) has the inverse self-bending curvature of −18.4 m-1 as compared with that of SMPC in course direction (0°). The complex double curvature self-bending behavior of SMPC was also demonstrated. This work helps to broaden the development and research of reversible shape memory composites.

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