Experimental and FEM analysis of the fracture behavior in NiTi shape memory alloys

In the present work, the fracture toughness of a NiTi pseudoelastic alloy has been obtained by experiments on CT specimens, which is K_IC = 39.38MPam^1/2. Then the stress induced phase transformation behavior in front of the crack tip of the CT specimen is simulated by a micromechanical model considering the different elastic properties between martensite and austenite. The results show that the pre-crack promotes phase transformation at the crack tip. And the phase transformation is localised near the crack tip. It is also shown that phase transformation reduces the Mises stress around the crack tip.