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  Home > JCE Print > Journal of Chemical Education > Issues > 1998  > March  >
Chemistry Everyday for Everyone
Products of Chemistry
The ThermobileTM: A Nitinol-Based Scientific Toy
George B. Kauffman and Isaac Mayo
California State University, Fresno, Department of Chemistry, 2555 E. San Ramon Avenue, Fresno, CA 93740-0070
Cover
March 1998
Vol. 75 No. 3
p. 313
Abstract
The serendipitous discovery of Nitinol, "the metal with a memory," has revolutionized manufacturing and medicine as countless products that "think" for themselves and sense changes in themselves and their surroundings and respond appropriately enter the marketplace. This best known example of a so-called "intelligent" or "smart" material undergoes changes that occur between two solid phases, which involve rearrangement of atoms within a crystal lattice. It "remembers" its shape because the phase change (between austenite and martensite phases) affects its structure on the atomic level only, without disturbing the arrangement of the crystals, which would be irreversible. In 1981 Frederick E. Wang patented and in 1985 began to market a scientific toy called the ThermobileTM, which lends itself readily to lecture demonstrations and laboratory experiments. This engine with no visible power source is designed to demonstrate the conversion of low temperature thermal energy to mechanical energy by means of a Nitinol loop wrapped around a system of two pulleys. Sources of the ThermobileTM and Nitinol are given.
More Information
*  Citation
 Kauffman, George B.; Mayo, Isaac. J. Chem. Educ. 1998 75 313.
*  Keywords
 Demonstrations, Public Understanding/Appreciation, Materials Science, Metals
*  History
 Created:
Last Updated:		 June 28, 1999
June 24, 2005
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