Characterization of Water-Controlled Shape Memory Alloys for Solar Tracking Applications

Growing demands for cleaner energy sources lead to innovations that require investigations in solar energy harvesting. Though numerous organic and inorganic photovoltaic devices have been explored for the solar power conversion, achieving a high efficiency is still an open challenge for the researchers. In this context, an efficient, self-adjusting solar power panel coupled with low-cost and high reliability is of great significance and demand. In this study, we investigate the potential of Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) actuators for solar tracking applications. Three SMA configurations were considered containing one and up to three SMAs arranged in parallel. The temperature range for the displacement experiments was 40°–60°. Additionally, three levels of mass were used, namely, 500 g, 600 g, and 700 g. The displacement experiments revealed that the addition of more SMAs into the configuration provided a more consistent performance. The force experiment revealed that two-SMA configuration achieved 60