Multicomponent alloys with thermally, mechanically and magnetically controlled shape memory effects

This paper presents a brief review of the systematic study of the influence of the chemical composition on the structure, phase transformations and physical properties of binary and quasi-binary Ti-Ni, TiNi-TiFe, TiNi-NiCu, NiMn-NiGa and Ni₂MnGa-Ni₃Ga systems, which undergo thermoelastic martensitic transformations (TMT) and related with them thermally, mechanically, or magnetically controlled shape memory effects (SME). The effect of alloying with a third component on the behavior of critical temperatures and the TMT sequence has been established, and their generalized diagrams have been constructed. It is shown that the morphology of thermoelastic martensite is a hierarchy of packets of thin coherent crystals. (paper)