Part of the book: Advances in Composite Materials
Part of the book: Metal, Ceramic and Polymeric Composites for Various Uses
The main goal was to demonstrate the possibility of investigating martensitic transformation induced by plastic strain, especially including the kinetics of this transformation, using selected cross effects. It is commonly known that this type of transformation is a basic “mechanism” occurring in shape memory materials and metastable austenitic steels strengthened with martensite separations. The motivation behind the research was also to follow and visualise the transformation on line, during cyclic loading (fatigue process), without the necessity to use, for example, roentgenographic (destructive) or microscopic methods. The application of the magneto-mechanical effect (the Villari effect) and the thermomechanical effect (the Kelvin/Thomson effect) turned out to be particularly useful because they significantly change with martensite initiation and then accumulate in austenite. Therefore, the goal was to develop the non-destructive methods of investigating martensite transformation, which could then be used on real constructions made of metastable austenite steel. In the case of the magneto-mechanical method, the goal was to additionally visualise the magnetic field transformations along a sample in the function of a loading cycle and the index of this period. To achieve this, high-resolution phase maps were used, which also allowed image processing methods known from machinery visioning (MV) or digital image correlation (DIC) techniques to be used.
Part of the book: Austenitic Stainless Steels