Effect of aging on the superelastic response of a single crystalline FeNiCoAlTa shape memory alloy

This study reports the effect of selected aging treatments on the superelastic response of 〈1 0 0〉-oriented Fe–28% Ni–17% Co–11.5% Al–2.5% Ta (at.%) single crystals in tension. A smaller precipitate size and lower precipitate fraction of the samples aged at 700 °C for 7 h leads to lower transformation temperatures, a wide temperature range for superelasticity and higher transformation stress levels as compared to the samples aged at 600 °C for 90 h. Both aging conditions results in fully recoverable transformation strain of 3.4% in tension.