Low-energy tensile-impact behavior of superelastic NiTi shape memory alloy wires

Superelastic property of shape memory alloys (SMAs) is becoming increasingly important for impact applications due to their large recoverable strains and high capacity to dissipate energy. In this work, tensile behavior of superelastic NiTi SMA wires at impact strain rates was studied by instrumented tensile-impact technique, which allows to obtain material properties on the order of 1–102 s−1. The results show that even at impact strain rates, martensite can be induced by tension in NiTi. At impact, a plateau stress appears during transformations similar to that at quasi-static strain rates, but 100–150 MPa higher in stress. This is due to the higher temperatures achieved during the deformation due to the close to adiabatic nature of the impact event. The influence of the strain rate over the mechanical behavior of NiTi was spread to the quasi-static strain rates so that the evolution of several parameters was also studied on the range 10−5–102 s−1. Therefore, forward stress-induced martensitic (SIM) transformation stresses (σMs and σMf) and deformation energy (Ed) increase with strain rate, but they are strain rate independent from 10−1 s−1 at least until 102 s−1. Reverse SIM transformation stresses (σAs and σAf), recoverable strain energy (Er), and dissipated energy (Wd) depend mainly on maximum strain achieved during the deformation, but for strains corresponding to a load–unload cycle with complete SIM transformation, σAs, σAf and Er are higher at impact than at quasi-static strain rates, and Wd shows similar values at very low strain rates and at impact.