Key features
Shape Memory Alloys - Technology and Industrial Applications

Shape memory and superelasticity properties originate from microstructural transformations associated with a particular solid-solid phase transition: the martensitic transformation. This transformation occurs without diffusion. The high-temperature phase, austenite, and the low-temperature phase, martensite, have identical chemical compositions.

The transition between the two phases takes place through homogeneous deformation of the crystal lattice, essentially through shearing. This is a so-called first-order transition, which implies that both phases coexist during the transformation, and that there is a latent heat of transformation. The interface separating the martensite from the parent phase during the transformation is...