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The positive influence of crystallographic compatibility on the thermal transformation stability has been already investigated extensively in the literature. However, its influence on the stability of the shape memory effect or superelasticity used in actual applications is still unresolved. In this investigation sputtered films of a highly compatible TiNiCuCo composition with a transformation matrix middle eigenvalue of 1 ± 0.01 are exposed to thermal as well as to superelastic cycling. In agreement with previous results the thermal transformation of this alloy is with a temperature shift of less than 0.1K for 40 cycles very stable; on the other hand, superelastic degradation behaviour was found to depend strongly on heat treatment parameters. To reveal the transformation dissimilarities between the differently heat-treated samples, the microstructure has been analysed by transmission electron microscopy, in situ stress polarization microscopy and synchrotron analysis. It is found that good crystallographic stability is not a sufficient criterion to avoid defect generation which guarantees high superelastic stability. For the investigated alloy, a small grain size was identified as the determining factor which increases the yield strength of the composition and decreases the functional degradation during superelastic cycling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, it is demonstrated that current methods of modelling plasticity as the collective motion of discrete dislocations, such as two-dimensional discrete dislocation plasticity (DDP), are unsuitable for the simulation of very high strain rate processes (106 s−1 or more) such as plastic relaxation during shock loading. Current DDP models treat dislocations quasi-statically, ignoring the time-dependent nature of the elastic fields of dislocations. It is shown that this assumption introduces unphysical artefacts into the system when simulating plasticity resulting from shock loading. This deficiency can be overcome only by formulating a fully time-dependent elastodynamic description of the elastic fields of discrete dislocations. Building on the work of Markenscoff & Clifton, the fundamental time-dependent solutions for the injection and non-uniform motion of straight edge dislocations are presented. The numerical implementation of these solutions for a single moving dislocation and for two annihilating dislocations in an infinite plane are presented. The application of these solutions in a two-dimensional model of time-dependent plasticity during shock loading is outlined here and will be presented in detail elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]