“In situ” and “Post-mortem” TEM study of the super-elastic effect in Cu–Al–Ni shape memory alloys

An analysis of the microstructure evolution during super-elastic cycling has been performed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) in order to understand the physical mechanism responsible for the thermo-mechanical properties evolution, as well as the martensitic transformation ageing. Particularly, in this work we have studied the super-elastic effect in Cu–Al–Ni shape memory alloys by “in situ” TEM experiments. The bright field images and diffraction patterns have allowed us to determine, during the transformation, the kind of nucleated martensite variants and their relative orientations. Finally, we have analysed the super-elastic effect on the dislocation microstructure and on the transformation temperatures.