Crystallization of amorphous ribbon in NiTi-Cu shape memory alloy

The objective of this work is to study the crystallization process of the amorphous ribbon of NiTi-Cu based shape memory alloys. An amorphous material with a composition of Ti50Ni25Cu25 was used to conduct this study. First, a study was conducted to understand the crystallization kinetics of this amorphous material at the isothermal model and continuous heating mode, respectively. The characteristic parameters associated with the crystallization process, such as the start and finish time for isothermal crystallization, the peak temperature for continuous heating crystallization, and activation energy, are obtained. Based on the study of experimental data of crystallization kinetics, a series of isothermal annealing experiments was conducted to study the crystallization process and microstructure of fully crystallized materials. The TEM micrograph shows the crystal phase growths in the amorphous matrix as a perfect geometric sphere. A system analysis was conducted to explain the crystallization micro-mechanism.