Nitinol Actuators by Miga Technologies LLC
Nitinol Technical Demonstrations
Below are demonstrations of various ways of using Nitinol and how it works.
Ultra High Temp Nitinol Actuator in Boiling Water
We have worked with NASA in the development and testing of Ultra High Temperature (UHT) Shape Memory Alloys. This actuator features Nickel-Titanium-Palladium (NiTiPd) and Nickel-Titanium-Platinum (NiTiPt). These alloys have a very steep transition temperature in the...
Nitinol Properties
Nitinol Properties Transformation Temperature -200 to 110 deg. C Latent Heat of Transformation 5.78 cal/g Transformation Strain for a single cycle 8% for 100,000 cycles 4% Hysteresis 30 to 50 deg. C Melting Point 1300 deg. C (2370 deg. F) Density 6.45 g/cu.cm (0.233...
20 mil Flexinol HT Air cooling vs Mineral Oil cooling
Cooling in mineral oil is twice as fast as in air for 20 mil Flexinol HT
Center Post Rail Gun Actuator
Twelve layer printed coils are used to launch a small Neodymium Iron Borate magnet. We use short 10 ms pulses in the coil at 30 Volts.
Nitinol Actuator Hoists Bowling Ball 150x its Weight
A modular SMA actuator provided one half inch of stroke using 14" of 0.015" diameter Flexinol HT. We operated the actuator at 12 Volts for 0.4 seconds. Our Nitinol Actuation Model predicted a cooling time of 8 seconds which matched experiment.
Nano Muscle Nitinol Walking Bug
This actuator used two linear NanoMuscle motors to provide the realistic bug-like walking motion. It was a self-contained critter powered by it's own internal battery pack. It used 6" of 0.0035" diameter of a custom alloy Nitinol.
Shape Memory Alloy Motion Demo
This is a simple demonstration of how a little bit of Shape Memory Alloy Wire and some leverage can provide realistic organic motion. Our Nitinol Actuation Model predicted that 12" of 0.008" HT Flexinol in a U-shaped configuration would be required to make this duck...
Nitinol Actuators in series explanation
The longer the length of wire, the higher the resistance, thus drawing less current for a given operating voltage. In this demo we are operating three life vest trigger mechanism in series using a single MOSFET current switch. Our Nitinol Actuation Model predicted...
High Speed Nitinol Actuation with fan forced air
This is 91 mm long S100 actuator which has 2.5 mm of stroke. It has 73 mm of 0.005 HT Flexinol wire. We operate it in a strong airflow at 9 Volts as part of our study on enhanced cooling to verify fit to our Nitinol Actuation Model.
High speed Flexinol LT cooling with Mineral Oil and Dry Ice
This video shows part of a study to determine enhanced cooling for rapid cycling of Nickel-Titanium. We show 20" of 15 mil Flexinol LT cooling in 2.5 seconds to full recovery in Mineral Oil and Dry Ice using a 15 pound spring. Actual data compared to data predicted...