Microstructure and mechanical properties of dissimilar NiTi and 304 stainless steel joints produced by ultrasonic welding

Superelastic NiTi alloy and 304 stainless steel (304 SS) were joined with a Cu interlayer by ultrasonic spot welding (USW) using different welding energy inputs. The surface morphology, interfacial microstructure, mechanical properties, and fracture mechanisms of the dissimilar NiTi/304 SS USWed joints were studied. The results showed that the surface oxidation intensified with increasing ultrasonic welding energy due to mutual rubbing between tools and sheets. The weld interface microstructure exhibited voids or unbonded zones at low energy inputs, while an intimate contact was established at the joining interface when applying a higher energy input of 750 J. With increasing energy input to 750 J, the weld interface shows two interfaces due to the behavior of plastic flow of Cu interlayer. The lap-shear load of the joints first increased, achieving a maximum value of ∼690 N at an energy input of 750 J, and then decreased with further increase in welding energy. Interfacial failure was observed at NiTi/Cu interface at all energy inputs, and no intermetallic compounds were found on the fracture surfaces of both the NiTi/Cu and Cu/304 SS interfaces.

Investigation of the Propagation of Stress Wave in Nickel-Titanium Shape Memory Alloys

Based on irreversible thermodynamic theory, a new constitutive model incorporating two internal variables was proposed to investigate the phase transformation and plasticity behavior in nickel-titanium (NiTi) shape memory alloys (SMAs), by taking into account four deformation stages, namely austenite elastic phase, phase transition, martensitic elastic phase, and plastic phase. The model using the material point method (MPM) was implemented by the FORTRAN code to investigate the stress wave and its propagation in a NiTi rod. The results showed that its wave propagation exhibited martensitic and austenitic elastic wave, phase transition wave, and plastic wave. However, a double-wave structure including the martensitic and austenitic elastic wave and plastic wave occurred when the martensitic elastic wave reached the phase transformation wave. Thus, the reflection wave at a fixed boundary exhibited a different behavior compared with the elastic one, which was attributed to the phase transition during the process of reflection. It was found that the stress increment was proportional to the velocity of phase transition wave after the stress wave reflection. In addition, the influences of loading direction and strain rate on the wave propagation were examined as well. It was found that the phase transition wave velocity increased as the strain rate increased. The elastic wave velocity of martensite under compressive conditions was larger than that under tensile loading. In contrast, the plastic wave velocity under compression was less than that subjected to the tensile load.