In-situ synchrotron high energy X-ray diffraction study of spontaneous reorientation of R phase upon cooling in nanocrystalline Ti_(50)Ni_(45.5)Fe_(4.5)alloy

This study investigated a peculiar phenomenon of self-reorientation of thermally formed R phase in nanocrystalline Ti_(50)Ni_(45.5)Fe_(4.5)by means of in-situ syn-chrotron high energy X-ray diffraction(HE-XRD).Two samples with different average grain sizes of 40 and 90 nm were investigated.R phase in the 40-nm grain size sample was found to self-reorient gradually upon cooling,whereas the same phenomenon did not occur in the 90-nm grain size sample.This self-reorientation process is attributed to the development and evolution of an internal stress anisotropy caused by the second order continuous lattice distortion of R phase upon further cooling in the small nanograined matrix,which lacks the self-accommodation mechanism for internal stress cancellation.

Microstructure of stress-induced martensite in nanocrystalline NiTi shape memory alloy

The microstructure of stress-induced martensite （SIM） in the nanocrystalline NiTi alloy was investigated by means of transmission electron microscopy （TEM）. The result shows that the multi-variant structure of the martensite is suppressed and only single-variant martensitic twins form after tensile deformation when the grain size is smaller than 80 nm. The normal directions of the （001）B19, twin planes are all. within the range of 45° from the axial direction of the wire. The angle between twin crystals （111）M and （111）x of the SIM is also found to be smaller than that of thermally induced martensite in nanocrystalline NiTi.