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This paper presents the thermo-magneto-electro-elastic (thermo-MEE) field in an annular plate of heterogeneous multiferroic composite medium subjected to thermal loadings uniformly distributed on the main boundaries. As a prior, the temperature distribution is determined by solving the thermo-conduction equation. Then, the direct displacement method is employed to derive the coupling thermo-MEE field. Finally, numerical calculations are performed to validate the present analysis and to investigate the influence of the material heterogeneity and the multi-field coupling. The present solutions can be readily reduced to those for circular plate upon letting the inner radius tend to zero. The obtained solutions may serve as a benchmark to various numerical codes and simplified analyzes, since no ad hoc hypothesis is adopted in the present work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The structural response of coexisting multiple martensites to stress field in a Ni–Mn–Ga multifunctional alloy was investigated by the in situ high-energy x-ray diffraction technique. Stress-induced transformation between coexisting multiple martensites was observed at 110 K, at which five-layered modulated (5M), seven-layered modulated (7M) and non-modulated (NM) martensites coexist. We found that a tiny stress of as low as 0.5 MPa could trigger the transformation from 5M and 7M martensites to NM martensite and this transformation is partly reversible. Besides the transformation between coexisting multiple martensites, rearrangement of martensite variants also occurs during loading, at least at high stress levels. The present study is instructive for designing advanced multifunctional alloys with easy actuation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]