Shape memory strains and temperatures in the extreme

Abstract

It is well known that the achievement of high transformation strains in shape memory alloys (SMAs) has been curtailed by plastic deformation mediated via dislocation slip. In particular, the utilization of SMAs at high temperatures is also hindered by plastic slip. In this paper, an overview of the most important SMAs is provided by constructing transformation strain, transformation temperature, and slip resistance plots to put existing works in perspective. To this plots, we added results on NiTiHf alloys which impart both high temperature capability and high slip resistance at unprecedented levels. The remarkable finding is that NiTiHf alloys can undergo transformation strains near 20% and transformation temperatures exceeding 400°C.