SBIR Phase I: Shape Memory Alloy Thermal Energy Harvesting System

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will address challenges with enduring low operating margins and plant inefficiencies across many application areas. Recovering low-grade waste heat is often a technically impractical and cost-prohibitive process. The proposed technology is designed to offset operating costs and increase overall plant efficiency. Target users for the thermal energy-harvesting system are owners/operators of combined heat and power (CHP) installations, metal manufacturers, chemical processors, industrial boilers, and other industrial facilities currently unable to recover the substantial amounts of low-grade waste heat that their facilities generate. The technology would potentially offer these applications reduced operating costs, reduced energy demands, and improved sustainability. This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project will advance the translation of porous Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) materials as actuators. The innovation will be an SMA actuator comprised of a novel, porous SMA material operating in a compact rotary form. The porous material's small feature size will allow for fast heat transfer and phase transformation, compared to solid SMA actuators. This novel actuator is expected to result in the recovery of substantially more power from the same mass of SMA material. The proposed Phase I proof-of-concept work will produce validated models of the overall SMA behavior and its coupled behavior in a system, including heat transfer, thermo-mechanical behavior, and localized stresses. In addition to the improved models, the proposed work will focus on reliability for translation of porous SMA materials. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.