A σ–T diagram analysis regarding the γ′ inhibition in β ↔ β′ + γ′ cycling in CuAlNi single crystals

An effect of inhibition of the γ′ martensitic structure in thermal and pseudoelastic β ↔ β′ + γ′ cycling in CuAlNi single crystals was reported previously [Gastien R, Corbellani CE, Álvarez Villar HN, Sade M, Lovey FC. Mater Sci Eng A 2003;349:191], and an experiment to determine the new thermodynamic parameters to obtain the stress-induced γ′ structure was performed [Gastien R, Corbellani CE, Sade M, Lovey FC. Acta Mater 2005;53:1685]. In this paper, a thermodynamic analysis of this effect using σ–T diagrams is proposed, in order to obtain a proper estimation of the energy involved in the inhibition process for pseudoelastic β ↔ β′ + γ′ cycling.