Modelling SuperElastic Material (Nitinol)

[Shaswat]

Hi,

I am trying to simulate tendon driven continuum robot with spacer disks. I need to model a backbone made of Nitinol. But using TetrahedronFEMForceField I input the Youngs Modulus (89 GPa) and Poissons Ratio (0.33), due to which the backbone is behaving as a rigid body.

Is there any other method to model a backbone made of a superelastic material?

Regards
Shaswat

[Hugo]

hey @shaswat2001

What do you mean by “behaving as a rigid body”?
Could you share your scene and explain the expected behavior?

Best wishes,

Hugo

[Shaswat]

Hi @Hugo,

Super-elastic material (like Nitinol) has an elastic response when stress is applied to it. But I have been unable any library in SOFA to model it.

By “behaving as a rigid body” what I mean is that Nitinol has High Youngs Modulus (89GPa) and when I am using TetrahedronFEMForceField to model Nitinol, due to the high youngs modulus the backbone is not showing compliant nature.

I was wondering if there is any library in SOFA to model Super-elastic material or if there is a workaround to accurately model it.

Regards
Shaswat

[Hugo]

Hi @shaswat2001

We do not have super-elastic material in SOFA. However, an innovative project is ongoing to couple SOFA and FeniCS to have the possibility to define the material and its energy formulation and run it in SOFA: https://github.com/Ziemnono/SofaSimpleForceField_FEniCS

It would thus be possible to implement new material laws like Nitinol.

Best wishes,

Hugo

[Author]

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