Phase field study on the microscopic mechanism of grain size dependent cyclic degradation of super-elasticity and shape memory effect in nano-polycrystalline NiTi alloys

A non-isothermal and crystal plasticity based phase field model was established by incorporating various inelastic deformation mechanisms, i.e., martensite transformation, martensite reorientation, the austenitic plasticity caused by dislocation slipping, and the martensitic plasticity caused by dislocation slipping and deformation twinning, in which the deformation twinning mechanism was newly considered. The grain size (GS) effect of martensite transformation and reorientation was characterized by introducing a grain boundary energy, and the GS dependent resistances of dislocation slipping and deformation twinning were considered in the phase field simulation for the first time to describe the GS dependence of plastic deformation. Through a series of phase field simulations on the inelastic cyclic deformation of two-dimensional nanopolycrystalline NiTi shape memory alloy (SMA) systems, the microscopic mechanism of the GS dependent cyclic degradation of the super-elasticity (SE), one-way shape memory effect (OWSME) and stress-assisted two-way shape memory effect (SATWSME) of such alloy systems was newly clarified. The simulated results show that with decreasing the GS, the cyclic degradations of the SE and SATWSME are both mitigated gradually, while that of OWSME is aggravated first and then mitigated; when reducing the GS to 10 nm, almost no functional degradation occurs. Further analysis shows that the GS dependence of the cyclic degradations of SE and SATWSME can be attributed to that: as reducing the GS, the plastic deformation resistances gradually increase due to the Hall-Patch effect, and the GS effect of martensite transformation and reorientation reduces the deformation mismatch introduced in the polycrystalline system and leads to the decrease of local internal stress level (i.e., the driving force of plastic deformation decreases) (Factor I) during the cyclic deformation, therefore, the generation and accumulation of plastic deformation are inhibited. However, for the cyclic degradation of OWSME, besides Factor I, since the reorientation-induced plasticity is mainly concentrated on the grain boundaries and their nearby grain interiors, the increase of grain boundary proportion results in the concentration and accumulation of plastic deformation at more locations during the cyclic deformation (Factor II). The competition between Factors I and II makes the cyclic degradation of OWSME show a non-monotonic variation with the decrease of the GS .