Experimental and numerical determinations of the initial surface of phase transformation under biaxial loading in some polycrystalline shape-memory alloys

Biaxial proportional loading such as tension (compression)-internal pressure and bicompression tests are performed on a Cu-Zn-Al and Cu-Al-Be shape memory polycrystals. These tests lead to the experimental determination of the initial surface of phase transformation (austenite --> martensite) in the principal stress space (sigma(1), sigma(2)). A first "micro-macro" modeling is performed as follows. Lattice measurements of the cubic austenite and the monoclinic martensite cells are used to determine the "nature" of the phase transformation, i.e. an exact interface between the parent phase and an untwinned martensite variant. The yield surface is obtained by a simple (Sachs constant stress) averaging procedure assuming random texture. A second modeling, performed in the context of the thermodynamics of irreversible processes, consists of a phenomenological approach at the scale of the polycrystal. These two models fit the experimental phase transformation surface well. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.