High yield stress and narrow phase transformation hysteresis of thermomechanical-processing NiTiCu shape memory alloy.

NiTiCu shape memory alloy is subjected to thermomechanical processing which deals with local canning compression followed by annealing at 300, 450 and 600 °C, respectively. Transformation temperatures of annealed NiTiCu specimens increase with elevating annealing temperature. Following annealing at 300 °C, NiTiCu specimen exhibits high yield stress of about 2000 MPa due to the existence of nanocrystalline grains. NiTiCu sample annealed at 600 °C possesses an extremely narrow phase transformation hysteresis width of about 1 °C. Nanotwins are found in NiTiCu sample annealed at 300 °C, while a large number of twin variants appear in NiTiCu samples annealed at 450 and 600 °C. Nanocrystalline grains contribute to suppressing the occurrence of twin variants. Furthermore, nanocrystalline grains are not beneficial to the formation of martensite variants. In the case of compressive loading, martensite reorientation and detwinning take place more readily in NiTiCu samples annealed at 450 and 600 °C. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]