Impact response of pseudoelastic nitinol

The response of polycrystalline nitinol with solely austenite structure was studied in three series of planar impact tests characterized by loading of the nitinol samples of 0.5–10 mm thickness by 1 mm thick aluminum impactor accelerated up to velocities of about 387, 429, and 567 m/s. In all the tests, the velocities of the free surfaces of the samples were monitored by a laser velocity interferometer. It was found that in all three test series, the amplitude of elastic precursor wave, being initially greater than 4 GPa, rapidly decays with the propagation distance down to ∼2.5 GPa, below which the decay is hindered by atomic clusters of the nanometer size. Based on the part of the velocity histories indicating the shock-induced austenite–martensite transformation, the initial, of about 2.5 × 103 s−1, and the maximum, up to 1 × 105 s−1, rates of the transformation were determined. As well, the impact stress slightly greater than 4 GPa was determined as that required for the onset of the B2 → B19′ transformation under shock loading. The unloading parts of the same velocity histories allowed a rough estimate of the fraction of the shock-transformed martensite and the elucidation of the virtually complete reversibility of the transformation.