The specific heat of Cu–Al–Ni shape memory alloys

The specific heat of Cu81.8Al13.7Ni4.5 (AK10) shape memory alloy has been studied by means of conventional DSC and adiabatic calorimetry techniques. The transformation temperatures and the shape of the calorimetric curves obtained by adiabatic calorimetry do not show any noticeable dependence on the temperature measurement rates, contrarily to what is observed by other calorimetric techniques. The dynamical character of the various experimental methods together with the influence of the latent heat associated to the first order character of these phase transitions are discussed. The specific heat of AK10 has been measured from 50 to 350 K which covers the phase transformation temperature range. The forward and reverse martensitic transformation peaks were found at 299.5 and 304.6 K, showing a thermal hysteresis of 5.1 °C. The Cp accuracy can be estimated in 0.1% of Cp and permits a reliable assignment of the following values to the phase transition thermodynamic functions: ΔH = 7.4 ± 0.2 J/g and ΔS = 0.025 ± 0.001 J/gK.