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Inversion of the thermomechanical response in nitinol under cyclic loading: an analytical interpretation based on the thermoelastic effect theory

Pinto, V; Di Leonardo, S; Pitarresi, G; Burriesci, G; (2025) Inversion of the thermomechanical response in nitinol under cyclic loading: an analytical interpretation based on the thermoelastic effect theory. Mechanics of Materials , 211 , Article 105506. 10.1016/j.mechmat.2025.105506. (In press). Green open access

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Abstract

The superelastic behaviour of nitinol is crucial for the design of collapsible and self-expanding cardiovascular implants. Once these are expanded into the host anatomy, the material is predominantly in the austenitic configuration in the majority of the structure, and the cyclic loads acting on the devices are primarily due to small blood pressure variations occurring during the cardiac cycle. Nevertheless, only very few studies have explored the temperature evolution during small cyclic loading of nitinol in a stable austenitic state, reporting an unusual response, where the thermoelastic signal is in phase with the sinusoidal loading wave, rendering the common fundamental law of the thermoelastic effect inapplicable. In this study, infrared thermography (IRT) was employed to investigate the thermomechanical behaviour of an austenitic nitinol specimen under cyclic sinusoidal loading, with increasing amplitude and average strain values. An inversion of the thermomechanical response of nitinol was observed experimentally and explained analytically adopting the higher-order thermoelastic theory. The understanding of the austenitic temperature modulation with the local level of stress allowed to define an IRT approach suitable to quantify the stress levels, knowing the material thermal response and the ratio between mean and amplitude of the applied load.

Type: Article
Title: Inversion of the thermomechanical response in nitinol under cyclic loading: an analytical interpretation based on the thermoelastic effect theory
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1016/j.mechmat.2025.105506
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mechmat.2025.105506
Language: English
Additional information: © The Author(s), 2025. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Keywords: Superelastic nitinol, Austenite, Thermomechanical coupling, Thermoelastic stress analysis, Thermoelastic effect, Infrared thermography
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Mechanical Engineering
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10214521
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