The Influence of Hafnium Content, Cold Work, and Heat Treatment on the R-Phase Transformation of Niti Based Shape Memory Alloys

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe R-phase transformation of a Ti-rich NiTi shape memory alloy (SMA) and two ternary SMAs having the compositions Ni49Ti51-XHfx with lat% and 3at% Hf, has been investigated. The influence of cold work (CW) and heat treatment (HT) on the R-phase transformation is analyzed thermally using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC). Results show that the R-phase transformation depends on the SMA composition as well as the CW and HT conditions in a complex manner. For example, the formation of R-phase upon cooling from austenite (A) is increasingly suppressed with the substitution of Hf for Ti. For the ternary SMA with 3at% Hf, the A→R and R→A transformations are observed only at relatively large amounts of CW (above approximately 40%) and at a high HT temperature (450°C). DSC results also show that for the Ti-rich NiTi and the ternary SMA containing lat% Hf, the A→R and R→A transformation temperatures (TTs) are insensitive to cold work at a HT temperature of 450°C. However, at a lower HT temperature of 350°C, the TTs are found to decrease with increasing CW. For a given CW, the A→R and R→A transformations decrease with decreasing HT temperature and the effect is greatest at high CW (>50%) conditions. An effort is made to identify the factors responsible for the observed behavior in the R-phase transformation.