Ageing of martensite: stabilisation and ferroelasticity in Cu-based shape memory alloys

The changes in Gibbs energy were evaluated for the atomic configurations resulting after different diffusional processes, in order to detect the mechanisms that are responsible for stabilisation and rubber-like behaviour. The energies and the proposed atom interchanges were compared with the experimental evidence. The influence of the changes in short- and long-range order was evaluated in the binary and ternary Cu-based alloys.