Ductile Shape Memory Alloys of the Cu-Al-Mn System

Department of Materials Science, Faculty of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-77, Japan

Abstract

Cu-Al-Mn shape memory alloys with enhanced ductility have been developed by decreasing the degree of order in the β parent phase. Cu-Al-Mn alloys with Al contents lower than 18% exhibit good ductility with elongations of about 15% and excellent cold-workability arising from a lower degree of order in the Heusler (L21) β1 parent phase, without any loss in their shape memory behavior. In this paper the mechanical and shape memory characteristics, such as the cold-workability, the Ms temperatures, the shape memory effect and the pseudo-elasticity of such ductile Cu-Al-Mn alloys are presented.