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This paper investigates the fatigue performance of Nitinol thin-film devices used in medical applications. Freestanding films are fabricated and structured by microsystem technology processes (magnetron sputtering, UV lithography and wet chemical etching). A test rig is developed to address the requirements of Nitinol thin-film samples in terms of force, stroke and precision and also allows the multiplication of test rigs due to its inexpensive components. Hence, several samples can be tested simultaneously at different parameters in order to obtain a thorough characterization within reasonable test duration. Finite element analysis (FEA) is used to derive maximum principle strains of test specimen during cycling loading. Therefore, a superelastic, multiaxial material model with two different kinetic transformation mechanisms being capable of considering tension/compression asymmetry and temperature effects is realized and implemented using the FEA software Comsol Multiphysics. Good agreement between simulation and experimental tensile tests is shown. An excellent fatigue resistance with a high fatigue safety limit of 1.75% pulsatile strain amplitude for mean strains up to 2.5% with sputtered Nitinol diamond specimen is observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The exploitation of the elastocaloric effect in superelastic shape memory alloys (SMA) for cooling applications shows a promising energy efficiency potential but requires a better understanding of the non-homogeneous martensitic phase transformation. Temperature profiles on sputter-deposited superelastic $${\mathrm {Ti_{55.2}Ni_{29.3}Cu_{12.7}Co_{2.8}}}$$ shape memory alloy thin films show localized release and absorption of heat during phase transformation induced by tensile deformation with a strong rate dependence. In this paper, a model for the simulation of the thermo-mechanically coupled transformation behavior of superelastic SMA is proposed and its capability to reproduce the mechanical and thermal responses observed during experiments is shown. The procedure for experiment and simulation is designed such that a significant temperature change from the initial temperature is obtained to allow potential cooling applications. The simulation of non-local effects is enabled by the use of a model based on the one-dimensional Müller-Achenbach-Seelecke model, extended by 3D mechanisms such as lateral contraction and by non-local interaction, leading to localization effects. It is implemented into the finite element software COMSOL Multiphysics, and comparisons of numerical and experimental results show that the model is capable of reproducing the localized transformation behavior with the same strain rate dependency. Additionally to the thermal and the mechanical behavior, the quantitative prediction of cooling performance with the presented model is shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]