Martensitic phase transformations in Ni-Ti-based shape memory alloys: The Landau theory

We present a simple Landau free energy functional for cubic-to-orthorhombic and cubic-to-monoclinic martensitic phase transformations. The functional is derived following group subgroup relations between different martensitic phases tetragonal, trigonal, orthorhombic and monoclinic in order to fully capture the symmetry properties of the free energy of the austenite and martensite phases. The derived free energy functional is fitted to the elastic and thermodynamic properties of NiTi and NiTiCu shape memory alloys which exhibit cubic-to-monoclinic and cubic-to-orthorhombic martensitic phase transformations, respectively. (C) 2012 Acta Materialia Inc. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.