INFLUENCE OF RESISTANCE WELDING ON THE PROPERTIES OF A CuAlBe SINGLE CRYSTAL SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY

摘要

The unique properties of superelastic single crystalline CuAlBe wire are attractive for many applications. Nevertheless the growth of hundreds of meters of the same single crystalline wire is out of reach that is a major drawback for large scale industrial use. A practical way to obtain a very long wire is to join several shorter wires together. Resistance welding is a convenient and fast way to produce such a joining. The objective of this paper is to analyse the microstructural change observed inside the thermal affected zone after resistance welding and to determine its influence on the mechanical properties of the resulting wire. An equivalent mechanical performance is observed on CuAlBe/CuAlBe joint compared to that of a pure CuAlBe single crystal wire.