Transformation reversibility in Fe-Mn-Si shape memory alloy

The change of the surface relief associated with stress-induced epsilon martensite before and after the reverse transformation in an Fe-33%Mn-6%Si alloy (Ms=264K) has been investigated. The permanent strain of a 2.7% tensile-strained specimen was 1.1% after the reverse transformation. In this specimen, a large part of surface relief still remained after heating to 623K (above Af). When five training cycles of 2.5% straining at room temperature and heating at 623K were applied, the permanent strain became negligible and the surface relief vanished well. TEM observations showed that usual permament slip deformation hardly occurred in the interior of an austenite grain in a 3.8% tensile-strained specimen where the permanent strain after the reversion was 2%. These results indicate that the permanent strain in the shape memory behavior is mainly attributed to the lack of transformation reversibility, i.e., the lack of reversible movement of Shockley partial dislocations. The conditions for the reversibility were discussed and the importance of the back stress formed by the forward transformation was pointed out. The effects of traning were also briefly discussed. (orig.)