In situ neutron diffraction study of twin reorientation and pseudoplastic strain in Ni–Mn–Ga single crystals

Twin variant reorientation in single-crystal Ni–Mn–Ga during quasi-static mechanical compression was studied using in situ neutron diffraction. The volume fraction of reoriented twin variants for different stress amplitudes were obtained from the changes in integrated intensities of high-order neutron diffraction peaks. It is shown that, during compressive loading, ∼85% of the twins were reoriented parallel to the loading direction resulting in a maximum pseudoplastic strain of ∼5.5%, which is in agreement with measured macroscopic strain.