Enhancing the dynamics of SMA actuators by using latent heat

Actuators based on thermal shape memory alloys (SMA) show the highest energy densities of all available actuators. Because of the small cooling rate by convection or conduction, their dynamic is comparatively low. By accelerating the cooling of the SMA using latent heat, the time for resetting is decreased up to the factor of 100. In this work, we present the first results of this approach.