Shape Memory Alloys

Shape Memory Alloys include a wide range of various materials. These materials exhibit unique properties including thermal (shape memory effect) and mechanical (pseudoelasticity) memory, whereas both these characteristics depend on the martensitic phase transformation and diffusion-free transformation of the solid state. One of the main reasons is their attractiveness due to shape memory and pseudoelastic properties, excellent biocompability and high corrosive resistance. The most attention (even today) goes to Ni-Ti and Ni-Ti-Me systems, where Me represents another alloying element. This book covers mainly Ni-Ti based materials. Alloys from these systems have characteristic features of long-range structure, thermoelastic martensite and crystallographic reversible phase transformations. This book is focused on fabrication, conventional as well as non-conventional forming techniques. Among others there are stated methods for transformation temperatures measurement and evaluation of microstructural characteristic.