Scripta

METALLURGICA

V o l . S, pp. 1 2 7 - 1 3 0 , Printed in t h e U n i t e d

1971 States

Pergamon

Press,

Inc.

STRESS-ASSISTED

MARTENSITE

FORMATION IN TiNi

R. J. Wasilewski

Battelle Memorial Institute Columbus Laboratories Columbus, Ohio

(Received December 21, 1970)

In the absence of stress and is completed a mar~ensitic transformation on cooling starts at some temperature Ms, on heating begins and

at some lower temperature Mf. temperatures

The reverse transformation

ends at the corresponding widely investigated

A s and Af.

In ferrous alloys, which have been most In other materials In "thermoelastlc

loop is very wide, and A >>M . s s the hysteresis may be quite small, as in AuCd (i), In-Tl (2), or TiNi (3). the hysteresis

to date, the hysteresis

martenslte Khandros

is very small, and in fact was not observed at all by Kurdyumov and

(4) in Cu-AI-Ni alloys. formation can be initiated above the M The maximum temperature temperature by the s at which martensite can be thus specimen orientaas an inherent to as

It is well known that martensite application of a suitable stress.

formed is denoted as M d.

This temperature depends on the stress conditions, other factors, itself. and thus cannot be considered

tion or texture and, possibly, characteristic of the material

The transformation

product is usually referred

"strain martensite".

Such transformations

are common in cold working of metastable

~-titanium low

alloys, where the ~' (strain martensite) stress levels. As shown by Kulin et al.,

formati~n provides useful ductility at relatively (5) under some conditions formation. transformations,

loading even in the elastic

range may be sufficient

to cause strain martensite

A phenomenon which is related to some martensitic In-Tl alloys, (6,7) is the ability of the material

and was first observed in deformed to return to

apparently plastically This behavior,

its original configuration like" or "ferroelastic", a regularly reversible

on the removal of stress.

referred to as "rubberheat treated to produce in terms of a

has been observed structure

to date only in materials

twinned martensite

(8), and has been rationalized

growth of one of the twin orientations (6,7).

at the expense of the other, under the action

of the applied stress Geometrically However, movement

this rationalization

is in fair agreement with the few available observations. Firstly, such a reversible twin-boundary of "elastic

some reservations

to it can be raised.

is certainly untypical

in twinned structures,

although some observations

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STRESS-ASSISTED MARTENSITE FORMATION IN TiNi

Vol.

5, No.2

twins" have been reported (9).

Secondly such boundary movement has been stated to result in a

completely uniform, single-crystal, orientation (i0); inasmuch as no lattice damage is involved in the migration and the implied disappearance of these coherent twin boundaries, it is difficult to rationalize the reappearance of these twin boundaries, in what is now a martenslte single crystal, on the relaxation of the stress. Rather one would expect that the (now only Thirdly, a martensite

uniformly, elastically strained) single crystal should remain stable.

formed from an ordered parent structure is also ordered, and twin formation in ordered lattices is energetically unfavorable (ii). We shall propose here an alternative explanation for this

behavior, based directly on the effect of the applied stress on the transformation. Most of the observations to date have been interpreted in terms of materials in which the strain martenslte was observed after the deformation. The stability of such a transformation product

on the removal of the applied stress depends primarily on the temperature relative to the Mf and Af temperatures of the "stress-free" transformation. In ferrous materials M s < M d < A s. Thus,

although an applied stress results in martenslte formation significantly above Ms, the reverse transformation requires subsequent heating about the As-A f range; remains stable. The situation is significantly different when the thermal hysteresis of "stress-free" transformation is small. In particular, the Md temperature may well lie above Af, in which case the otherwise, the martensite

martensite formed on the application of stress at temperatures Af < T < M d will be unstable in the absence of the applied stress. To check this effect, the stress-straln behavior of a Ti-51 at.% Ni specimen was in6O SO vestigated. This material was processed to

~'40

exhibit an (As-Af) range of -5 to +10C, and tested at 20C in compression (4:1 length:diameter ratio). The stress-straln

data were obtained from an x-y recorder plot of the outputs from the load cell and a resistance strain gage for successive loading to increasing levels. The behavior observed, shown in Figure i, is consistent with the expected instability of the martensite. The apparent yield

2O I0

/
Anelastic Martensite Formation in Ti-51% Ni (A~ <I0C) at 20C; Final e <0.02%--

FIG i.

corresponds to the onset of the stressassisted formation of the martensite. On

unloading, there is a distinct hysteresis effect, the hysteresis loop broadening with increasing maximum load. The absence of residual plastic deformation has been confirmed by

measurement of the specimen after the completion of the tests; the permanent set was <--0.02 percent.

Vol.

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STRESS-ASSISTED

MARTENSITE

FORMATION

IN T i N i

129

Inasmuch as the stress-strain hysteresis, the transformation

behavior observed is not reversible,

but exhibits significant In view of is probably

product cannot be considered as "elastic" martensite. deformation, the term "anelastic martensite"

the absence of permanent, the more appropriate.

irreversible

It also appears that "stress-asslsted" its origin: the anelastic

rather than "strain" martensite

would more correctly describe the martensite formation.

strain is the result, not the cause, of

We note that in this experiment larly twinned, substructure.

the initial structure was fully 8, with no pre-existing,

regu-

Thus, the recovery cannot have been due to a reversible twln-boundary movement

twin-

boundary movement. martensitic tion

Therefore, we suggest that such apparent

in the transforma-

In-Tl and AuCd structures

is the result of a successive stress-asslsted

MI

B' + M"

where M 1 denotes the initial martenslte

in the orientation

favorable for stress-asslsted

trans-

formation to 8; 8' denotes the 8 structure martensite (formed immediately

formed on stress application;

and M" denotes the

since T < Mf) with the particular

orientation m o s t compatible

with the applied stress. martenslte" partiuular conditions. orientation

We note that this may, but not necessarily will, b__eethe second "twinobtained under stress-free that form transformation conditions. In general, the

B' and M" variants

are strongly dependent on the applied stress

We further note that the return to the original configuration be accounted for. Assuming

on the removal of the load can now the absence of

(as implied in the twln-boundary m o v e m e n t mechanism)

slip, the distortions adjacent,

caused by the above double transformation M 1 martensite.

result in elastic strains in the these

untransformed,

When no longer balanced by the applied stress, transformation M" 8' M I.

are sufficient

to cause the reverse stress-asslsted is not truly complete, cycling.

It is probable damage

that the reverisibility

as it seems unlikely

that no irreversible

would result from the transformation It is evident, therefore,

that the origin of the anelastic behavior observed stems directly from

the stress-assisted structure martensite

structure transformation, and that the prior existence of any specific condition. It is suggested that to regard the heterogeneous tranforma(12). The

is not a necessary structures

as twinned may be misleading:

these result from a simultaneous orientation variants

tion of the parent lattice to two or more alternate martensite apparent twin-like coherency observed in some heterogeneous structure,

structures

should be viewed as due occurred. It is not

to the particular

and to the manner in which the transformation transformation per se.

inherent in the martensitic anelastic behavior,

The most striking published account of such as twin formation that (13),

namely that observed

in Fe3Be, was in fact interpreted twinning".

and formed the basis for a theory of "continuous mechanical these observations merely indicate the remarkable sitic transformations and of deformation twinning.

It is suggested

similarities

between some aspects of marten-

A more extensive account of the effects of applied stress on the martensitic

transformation,

and

of the mechanism of the "mechanical memory" in TiNi, will be reported elsewhere. been sponsored by the Battelle Memorial Institute Columbus Laboratories.

This work has

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STRESS-ASSISTED

MARTENSITE

FORMATION

IN T i N i

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References 1. D. S. Lieberman, "The Mechanism of Phase Transformations in Crystalline Sollds", Inst. of Metals Monograph, #33, 167 (1969). J. W. Bowles, C. S. Barrett, and L. Guttman, Trans. AIME, 188, 1478 (1950). R. J. Wasilewskl, S. R. Butler, and J. E. Hanlon, Met. Sci. J., ~, 104 (1967). G. V. Kurdyumov and L. G. Khandros, Doklady A. N. SSSR, 66, 211 (1949). S. A. Kulin, M. Cohen, and B. L. Averbach, Trans. AIME, 194, 661 (1952). M. W. Burkart and T. A. Read, Trans. AIME, 197, 1516 (1953). Z. S. Baslnski and J. W. Christian, ActaMet., ~, i01 (1954). D. S. Lieberman, M. S. Wechsler, and T. A. Read, J. appl. Phys., 26, 473 (1955). R. I, Garber, Zh. Exp. Teor. Fiz., 17, 63 (1947). H. K. Birnbaum and T. A. Read, Trans. AIME, 218, 662 (1960). F. Laves, Acta Met., 14, 58 (1966). K. Otsuka and K. Shimlzu, Japan J. appl. Phys., 8, 1106 (1969). G. F. Bo11Ing and R. H. Richman, Acta Met., 13, 723 (1965).

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.