The research project ADAPTEX investigates the potential of using the Smart Material Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) for an adaptive sun shading textile for architecture. By incorporating SMA as an actuator into a textile structure, the permeability of the surface adapts in response to temperature changes of the immediate environment. ADAPTEX thus creates a responsive, textile shading system that regulates solar gain, maximizes daylight autonomy and minimizes overheating and glare without the need for electricity - thereby significantly reducing a building's overall
energy consumption.

ADAPTEX Wave achieves a cyclic actuation is by designing the interplay of material forces between a textile band and a SMA-wire. By fixing wave-shaped, semi-rigid textile bands at specific points to a cable net, a strain is created in the material. Each band is interwoven across its entire length with a linear SMA-wire, which contracts by 5% when activated, thereby forcing the band to buckle. This leads to a closure of the overall surface. Due to the inner material strain, the textile band is able to move back to its original position after the elastic deformation. The textile bands are made of a durable glass-fibre reinforced fabric, which protects from solar radiation and glare. The soft kinetic
movement displays a muscle-like behaviour that is smooth and silent. As the textile band is interwoven with the SMA-wire following a precisely calculated path, the relatively small actuation of 5 % in contraction turns into a transition of an openness factor switching between 70 % and 5 %. The textile geometry was optimized in a continual exchange between physical modelling and analytical processing. With the digital representation of the material parameters, a functional optimization of the material system is enabled. This makes it possible to integrate the complex geometric interdepencies of the textile hybrid system and to predict the behavior of the physical prototype.
Based on the geometric simulation of the optimal relaxed and deformed shape of the textile, cutting patterns for manufacturing the textile bands are being generated.

Authors:
Weißensee School of Art and Design Berlin / DXM - Design Experiment Material, www.dxm-berlin.de
Dipl.-Ing. Maxie Schneider, Dipl.-Des. Ebba Fransén Waldhör, Prof. Dipl-Ing. Christiane Sauer
Priedemann Facade Lab GmbH, www.priedemann.net
Dipl-Ing. Paul-Rouven Denz, MSc. Arch. Puttakhun Vongsingha