Commercial Ni47T i44Nb9 Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) has attracted important attention for connection applications thanks to its wide transformation hysteresis. Indeed, it has been shown that reverse transformation temperature (As) can increase by 80 C, with martensitic reorientation under tensile loading. The aim is to model this behavior in order to design industrial applications, by taking into account the Niobium inclusions effects upon the amplification of this phenomenon for NiTiNb. Niobium

more »

... ecipitates have been identified by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), and characterized. It seems that the smallest ß-Nb Niobium inclusions have the most important impact on the phenomenon, explained by Niobium low yield stress and important scattering and number of inclusions. A two phases thermo-mechanical model has been developed. It describes the global effective behavior of an elastic-plastic inclusion (Niobium precipitates) embedded with SMA Matrix. The constitutive law of the matrix is that developed by Peultier et al. and improved by Duval et al.. The elastic-plastic constitutive law for inclusion is a classical one proposed by Simo and Hughes, the Mori-Tanaka scale transition is adopted in order to lead to the effective constitutive law. Numerical results are discussed and compared to experimental ones. a