Physical mechanisms for dependence of temperature-induced phase transition and shape memory effect on grain size in nanocrystalline NiTi shape memory alloys

Physical mechanisms for dependence of temperature-induced phase transition and shape memory effect (SME) on grain size (GS) of nanocrystalline NiTi shape memory alloys (SMAs) were revealed by combining experiment and molecular dynamics simulation. Influences of GS on phase transition temperature and stress level during tension loading below martensite transition finish temperature M_f are interpreted by core-shell theory that energy of shell (grain boundary (GB)) is higher than that of core (grain interior), so shell becomes an obstacle to deformation of the core and the obstacle increases with reducing GS because the fraction of GB increases with decreasing GS. Due to the constraint of shell, martensite transition during cooling is so incomplete that stress-induced martensite occurs in nanocrystalline NiTi SMAs deformed below M_f. After unloading, some stress-induced martensite phases are retained due to the lack of driving force for reverse martensite transition at low temperature. This is why SME occurs in the alloy with GS below 10 nm when no temperature-induced phase transition happens. Under the same tension strain, inelastic strain after unloading increases with increasing GS. The increase of GS causes the increase of SME strain, and the residual strain after heating the deformed nanocrystalline NiTi SMAs stems from the plastic deformation of martensite and austenite in grain interior during tension.