Quantitative Texture Analysis and Phase Fraction of Nickel-Titanium Shape Memory Alloys by Means of Neutron Diffraction

Abstract

The orientation distribution function (ODF) of the textured polycrystalline nickel titanium (NiTi) shape memory alloys (SMAs) was determined from the measured austenitic (B2)pole-figures by neutron diffraction. The texture results showed that neutron diffraction is an excellent tool to investigate the minor variation in the texture of NiTi alloys, which is very sensitive to the variation of the content of nickel in the materials. Moreover, the alloys crystallographic phase fraction and texture were calculated from Rietveld refinement with generalized spherical harmonic (GSH) description for the measured complete neutron powder diffraction (ND) spectrum, rather than a few isolated peaks, during in-situ temperature-induced martensitic transformation. The phase fraction results are consistent with the differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) curves.