An Introduction to Smart Materials

With the development of material science many new high quality and cost-efficient materials have come to use in various fields of engineering. Smart materials are new generation materials overcoming the conventional structural and functional materials. They possess adaptive capabilities to external stimuli such as loads or environment with inherent intelligence. Smart materials are defined as materials which possess the ability to change their properties in specific manner in response to specific stimulus input. The stimuli could be pressure, temperature, electric and magnetic fields, chemicals, hydrostatic or nuclear radiation. They are also called as functional materials. Smartness describes self-adaptability, self-sensing memory and multiple functionalities of the materials or structures.