In-situ synchrotron X-Ray diffraction investigation of the fast recovery of microstructure during electropulse treatment of heavily cold drawn nanocrystalline Ni-Ti wires

Recovery processes responsible for evolution of microstructures in 0.1 mm thin cold-drawn Ni-Ti shape memory alloy wire heat treated by DC electric pulse were investigated by combination of in-situ tensile stress - strain, electrical resistance and X-ray diffraction measurements. The X-ray data were used to obtain direct experimental information on the evolution of the phase fractions, internal strain and defects in the microstructure evolving through activation of a sequence of recovery processes during the short time electropulse treatment. It is shown that superelastic functional properties of the treated Ni-Ti wire can be precisely set by controlling the progress of the recovery processes by prescribing the time evolution of temperature T(t) and tensile stress sigma(t) (displacement control) in the treated wire.