CAREER: The Mechanics of Fracture in Superelastic Materials

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

CAREER: The Mechanics of Fracture in Superelastic Materials ABSTRACT Wendy C. Crone, Assistant Professor Engineering Mechanics Program, Department of Engineering Physics University of Wisconsin - Madison Shape memory alloys (SMA) constitute a unique class of materials that have already proven to have wide-ranging applications in the biomedical, aerospace, microelectronics, and automotive industries. These materials have a crystallographic structure that can change reversibly and reproducibly, allowing the material to display dramatic stress-induced and temperature-induced recoverable deformations. One key hurdle to their use is the development of reliable SMA materials and structures, in which the material's microstructure is well understood and its resistance to fatigue and fracture can be reliably predicted. Critical topics to be investigated in this research involve: determining the effect of process-induced microstructure on fracture and fatigue behavior; exploring the effect of grain refinement on the fracture behavior for grain sizes ranging between the micron and nanometer scale; and developing experimentally-based models that delineate the mechanisms influencing fracture and fatigue in NiTi and Cu-based SMAs. In conjunction with this research, education initiatives will be undertaken to develop widespread training at the undergraduate and graduate levels in superelastic behavior and shape memory materials, via new course material in the areas of nanomaterials, micromechanics and fracture mechanics. Not only will the expanded course material provide students with an introduction to topics where mechanics has been developing influence and making critical contributions to new technologies, it will also have international impact via Smart Materials Exemplar of the Worldwide Universities Network, an international network of researchers/educators.