3-D experiments shed new light on shape memory alloys

Shape memory alloys are well known for their remarkable properties—superelasticity, shape memory and actuation allow them to be crumpled up and then spring back to a "remembered" original shape.

But the advanced material remains drastically underutilized in commercial applications, uses that could include morphing the shape of airplane structures tomakeflight more efficient or deploying communication dishes and solar arrays in space.

Researchers from Colorado School of Mines are working to better understand how their complex internal microstructures change during shape memory behaviors and the results of their first-of-their-kind experiments were recently published by three major materials science and mechanics journals, Acta Crystallographica, Journal of the Mechanics and Physics of Solids and Scripta Materialia.