Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2011
Both austenite/martensite transformations, and martensite/martensite variant reorientation are central to superelasticity and shape memory actuation. Here we discuss a simple model for tracking these transformations that is appropriate for device modeling. The approach is to augment conventional continuum mechanical descriptions with internal variables that track fractional partitioning of the material between austenite and the various martensite variants. A three-species model involving austenite and two complementary martensite variants provides sufficient generality to capture the martensite variant distributions that underlie shape memory, and the strain-accommodation associated with superelasticity. Transformations between all of these species can be tracked on the basis of triggering algorithms that reflect both tran sformation hysteresis and the variation of triggering stress with temperature. The algorithm described here is for temperature-dependent response resolved in a single direction. It requires only the following experimentally determined parameters: the four transformation temperatures Mf, Ms, As, Af, the transformation strain, the Young's modulus, and the transformation latent heat.