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The work clarifies several key questions in shape memory research that have eluded previous studies. The f indings show that dislocation slip emanates at austenite-martensite interfaces during unloading and aligns with the internal twin boundary interface of martensite. It was observed that the type II internal twins of the martensite become parallel dislocations in the austenite. During reloading, these dislocations act as nucleation sites for the martensitic twins, reducing the nucleation barrier and the transformation stress. The precipitates facilitate martensite nucleation but also act as an obstacle to martensite front motion, restrict detwinning, and pin the interfacial dislocations during unloading, thereby contributing to residual strains and martensite stabilization. Martensite nucleation is not suppressed by the size of the thin film, which is of the order of 85 to 105 nanometers thick, and repeated transformation occurred cycle after cycle. Single crystals deformed in the <101> LD exhibited the best recoverability of up to 5.5 % and tensile stresses of up to 1.4 GPa. It was demonstrated for the first time that, when favorably oriented, Ni 4 Ti 3 precipitates undergo a reversible phase transformation to R-phase and can accommodate up to 4 % reversible strains. 

This study establishes the Orientation Relationship (OR) between the austenitic and martensitic phases of the new Shape Memory Alloy (SMA) FeMnNiAl from both experiments and analytical modeling. Through Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) and Electron Back-Scatter Difraction, three distinct ORs, namely the Nishiyama-Wassermann (N-W), Pitsch, and Kurdjumov–Sachs (K-S) ORs are established. The observations of non-unique ORs are explained using the energy-minimization theory of martensite revealing dependence of OR on the internal morphology of the martensitic phase, whether twinned or stackingfaulted. It is shown that the twin-variants of an internally twinned martensitic structure individually explain the Pitsch and K-S ORs. The N-W OR was observed in a stackingfaulted substructure of martensite. Through a novel extension to the energy-minimization theory for stacking-faulted substructures, the N-W OR is explained. Thus, the current study challenges the notion of OR as a material-characteristic and reveals a dependence of the OR on the internal substructure of the martensitic phase in SMAs, further establishing the OR for the new SMA FeMnNiAl. 

The newly developed FeMnAlNiTi shape memory alloy (SMA) holds significant promise due to its desirable properties including ease of processing, room temperature superelasticity, a wide superelastic window of operation, and high transformation stress levels. In this study, we report single crystals with tensile axis near h123i exhibiting transformation strains of 9% with a high trans- formation stress of 700 MPa. The functional performance revealed excellent recovery of 98% of the applied strain in an incremental strain test for each of the 40 applied cycles. Concomitantly, the total residual strain increased after each cycle. Accumulation of residual martensite is observed possibly due to pinning of austenite/martensite (A/M) interface. Subsequently, under structural fatigue loading with a constant strain amplitude of 1%, the recoverable strains saturate around 1.15% in local residual martensite domains. Intermittent enhancement of recoverable strains is observed due to transformation triggered in previously untransformed domains. Eventually, fatigue failure occur- red after 2046 cycles and the dominant mechanism for failure was microcrack initiation and coalescence along the A/M interface. Thus, it is concluded that interfacial dislo- cations, which play a crucial role in the superelastic (SE) functionality, invariably affect the structural fatigue per- formance by acting as the weakest link in the microstructure.