Development of a stress-induced martensitic transformation criterion for a Cu–Al–Be polycrystalline shape memory alloy undergoing uniaxial tension

This study presents a criterion for predicting the martensitic variants (MVs) that appear during the stress-induced martensitic transformation (SIMT) in a polycrystalline sample of Cu 11.5% wt. Al 0.5% wt. Be under simple tension. Our criterion is based on crystallographic parameters, such as the crystal orientation and Schmid factor (SF). The displacement vector fields (DVFs) were obtained in the observation system by a mathematical model and were used to distort the boundary of a set of grains. From the DVF, the strain tensor for each grain was obtained, and the strain ratio (SR) in the observation system was calculated. Electron backscattering diffraction (EBSD) measurements were performed to determine the crystal orientation of the grains. The inverse SF was used to determine the in-plane stress transformation diagrams (STDs) for each studied grain. The combination of a balance criterion (BC) and STD provided a criterion that allowed us to predict the possible order of stress-induced MVs formed as a function of the crystal orientation and thermomechanical parameters of the shape memory alloy (SMA) with higher accuracy than when using the criteria separately. To validate our criteria, we tested other researchers published results. Our results were in agreement and were capable of predicting the stress-induced MVs in a polycrystalline SMA.