The relative stability of dislocations embedded in the β phase matrix and in martensite phases in copper based alloys

Dislocations are formed during martensitic transformations in shape memory alloys. The number of dislocations (with Burgers vector →bβ = ao<010> and <111> line direction in the β phase) increases when the material is subjected to thermoelastic or pseudoelastic cycles. The dislocations are accumulated in the sample and are incorporated in the corresponding growing phase. The relative energy of the dislocations when embedded in the parent phase (with respect to b) one or another variant of martensite is evaluated in this work. The crystallographic changes of the dislocations provide a primary selection rule for those martensite variants in which the dislocations have the lowest energy. In order to proceed more quantitatively a full calculation of the dislocation energies has to be performed using the anisotropic theory. In this work these calculations have been made on the basis of measured elastic constants of the β and 2H phases of a Cu-Al-Ni alloy. It is concluded that those martensite variants are favored energetically whose basal plane contains the Burgers vector and line direction of the dislocations (Splitting into Shockley partials is suggested to occur). The importance of this result for the two-way shape memory (TWSM) effect is discussed and a mechanism is proposed which can account for the multiplication of dislocations during the transformation. (Author)