Building in smarter materials

Technologies that can automatically respond to changing conditions are expected to show up increasingly in future automobiles.

Finding your car in the parking lot with a dented door panel generally means a trip to the body shop and a hefty bill. But imagine simply driving home and fixing the damage with a bathroom hair dryer. If the door panel were made of a shape memory alloy (SMA) or polymer-types of “smart materials” that return to their original “memorized” forms when heat is applied-such easy DIY repairs would be possible.

Talk about bouncing back from adversity.