Shape memory alloy

With the increasing use of shape memory alloys in recent years, it is important to investigate the effect of cracks. Theoretically, the stress field near the crack tip is unbounded. Hence, a stress-induced transformation occurs, and the martensite phase is expected to appear in the neighborhood of the crack tip, from the very first loading step. In that case, the crack tip region is not governed by the far field stress, but rather by the crack tip stress field. This behavior implies transformation toughening or softening.

Smart materials have received much attention in recent years, especially due to their various applications in smart structures, medical devices, actuators, space and aeronautics. Among these
materials, shape memory alloys exhibit extremely large, inelastic, recoverable strains (of the order of 10%), resulting from transformation between austenitic and martensitic phases. This
transformation may be induced by a change, either in the applied stress, the temperature, or both.

Xi Wang, Yves Bellouard, Joost J. Vlassak

Published in Acta Materialia 53 (2005) p4955-4961.

Abstract — We present the results of a crystallization study on NiTi shape memory thin films in which amorphous films are annealed by a scanning laser. This technique has the advantage that shape memory properties can be spatially distributed as required by the application. A kinetics study shows that nucleation of the crystalline phase occurs homogenously in the films. Consequently, the laser annealing process produces polycrystalline films with a random crystallographic texture. The crystallized films have a uniform microstructure across the annealed areas. The material in the crystalline regions transforms reversibly to martensite on cooling from elevated temperature and stress measurements show that a significant recovery stress is achieved in the films upon transformation.