Pseudo-elasticity and other properties of shape-memory materials

The above processes began to be widely studied by different scientists. The next breakthrough took place with the discovery of nickel-titanium alloys during the investigation of material designed for heat shielding (Lagoudlas 4). It has been established that the material has an extreme shape recovery property and, later, this phenomenon was named as shape memory effect. Other elements like copper and iron appeared later and caused considerable decline in transformation temperatures. Since the appearance of ‘smart’ materials, numerous commercial implementations have been introduced in electronic, medicine, and other fields. Nowadays there exist different types of shape memory alloys where copper-aluminum-nickel alloy, and nickel-titanium (NiTi). However, there exist other types of ‘smart’ materials including iron and gold composites.