Steven Wakefield's research while affiliated with Imperial College London and other places

... Ply slip can subsequently be controlled by the dielectric constant of the material (ε r ), its thickness (d), the applied electric potential (V) and coefficient of friction (μ). σ = ε r ε 0 V 2 2d 2 (4) τ = μσ (5) Conversely, structural morphing composites utilising active slip typically incorporate thermoplastic (TP) layers as interleaves between composite plies to induce slip when the service temperature exceeds T g of the interleaf during the phase change from stiff to flexible [145,199,[236][237][238][239][240][241][242][243][244][245][246] (Fig. 8). Balsa wood plies interleaved with a hot glue (TP) layer and aluminium plies interleaved with TP polymers embedded with a nichrome wire heating element and electric heating blankets, respectively, are simple examples that can illustrate the potential of structural morphing composites with controllable stiffness [246,247]. ...