Influence of Gd on the microstructure, mechanical and shape memory properties of Cu-Al-Be polycrystalline shape memory alloy

In the present study, the influence of rare earth element gadolinium (Gd) on Cu-Al-Be polycrystalline shape memory alloy has been investigated. Cu 88.13 Al 11.42 Be 0.45 ternary alloy with addition of Gd from 0.05 to 0.15 wt% has been used for investigation. The tests have been carried out for microstructure, morphology, ductility, phases, crystal structure, phase transformation temperatures and shape recovery ratio. Refinement of the grain size resulted as gadolinium increased from 0 to 0.08 wt%, the grain size decreases from 463.45 to 81.80 µm with reduction of 82.34%. The tensile strength has increased from 398.93 to 581.42 MPa with improvement in the ductility from 10.05% to 23.72% at 0.08 wt% gadolinium. The phase transformation temperatures increases as gadolinium increases and reduction in shape recovery ratio from 97% to 65%.