A Heat Transfer System Identification Method for Shape Memory Alloy Wires

The thermo-mechanical coupling of shape memory alloys has been modeled comprehensively using energy based constitutive models. These constitutive models describe the relationship of temperature, stress and strain in material and propose a solid methodology for system identification of model parameters. Equally important in the dynamics of shape memory alloy applications is the heat transfer model. Heat transfer models have been proposed but a complete resource for system identification of the model parameters is missing in the literature. Therefore, in this paper, the parameters for a low-order heat transfer model are identified experimentally. It is shown that for all parameters the measured parameters accurately model the system leading to the necessary values for use in predictive models. Furthermore, it is shown that using nominal values will produce inaccuracies in the predicted system response.