Development
in device, structure, design, and space component mechanisms
is essential for performance and cost. Direct human interaction and
monitoring are complicated in the aeronautical and space industry
for morphing the structure-like winglet movement according to environmental
change, which currently takes place by electromechanical sensing and
response. This kind of system demands timely maintenance and control.
Alteration of this bulkiness is provided by a viable technology called
4D printing, which incorporates the interdisciplinary study of three-dimensional
printing, intelligent materials, stimulus, and design. In contrast
to static-natured additive manufactured or 3D printed structures,
four-dimensional (4D) printing enables transformation in objects under
application of the correct environmental command like temperature,
ohmic energy, water, light, magnetic energy, and much more. The insight
of 4D printing is due to focus-researched intelligent materials such
as shape memory polymers (SMP), shape memory alloys (SMA), and their
composites. Shape memory polymer composites (SMPC) are an emerging
class of insolent structural substances that can be inelastically
abnormal and regain its standard shape by an external environmental
change which serves in demanding applications like medical, origami,
sensors, and robotics, and in aerospace structures such as solar arrays,
deployable panels, cells, booms, self-deployable structures, reflector
antennas, and more. Herein, this review amalgamates progress of four-dimensional
printing with a combination of 3D printing, shape memory polymers,
additive effect on its structural as well as shape-memorizing qualities,
SMPC, composite fabrication methods, actuation medium, mechanism,
and focus on SMPC in future applications with natural stimuli like
solar energy, light, vibration, water, and more in self-actuation
robots, wearable electronics, satellite hinges, in whole, aero-mechanical
sectors, soft robotics industries, innovative electronics areas, defense
sectors, and so on.
