Journal of Alloys and Compounds 490 (2010) L28–L32

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Journal of Alloys and Compounds

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Letter

Temperature profiles in a Ti–45Ni–5Cu (at%) shape memory alloy developed by

the Joule heating
Seung-yong Yang a , Seok-won Kang b , Yeon-Min Lim b , Yun-jung Lee c ,
Jae-il Kim d , Tae-hyun Nam b,∗
a
School of Mechanical Engineering, Korea University of Technology and Education, Chonan, Chungnam 412-753, Republic of Korea
b
School of Materials Science and Engineering & ERI, Gyeongsang National University, 900 Gazwadong, Jinju, Gyeongnam 660-701, Republic of Korea
c
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Kyungbook National University, Daegu 702-701, Republic of Korea
d
Materials Science and Engineering, University of Dong-A, Busan 604-714, Republic of Korea

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Spatially varying temperature profile generated by the Joule heating of a Ti–45Ni–5Cu (at%) alloy wire
Received 10 June 2009 was investigated by experiment and analysis. The Joule heating is a simple and effective method to
Accepted 11 October 2009 fabricate shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators for proportional control. By applying a voltage drop of
Available online 20 October 2009
1.338 V, a temperature gradient between 504 K and 413 K was obtained experimentally over a length
of 30 mm SMA wire. A closed-form expression derived from a simple analytic model was suggested to
Keywords:
predict the temperature profile, and the result of the finite element analysis was also provided. Finally, it
Shape memory alloys (SMAs)
is demonstrated that the Joule heated specimen shows a low shape recovery rate of 0.02%/K and a unique
Functionally graded materials (FGMs)
Martensitic transformation
Lüders-type deformation with a progressively increasing stress level from 340 MPa to 380 MPa.
Thermomechanical processing © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Numerical analysis

1. Introduction
Various kinds of shape memory alloy (SMA) actuators have been
developed, which are classified into two groups. The first group is
on–off control type such as control valves of rice cookers and cof-
fee makers, actuators in circuit breakers and many medical fixing
devices [1,2]. Fast shape recovery at a specific temperature is neces-
sary for the purpose. The second group is proportional control type
such as actuators in robots, cameras and micro-grippers [3,4]. Those
actuators are required to have smooth and continuous motion for
precise position control. Linear and slow shape recovery over a wide
temperature window is necessary for the purpose.
In order to obtain the linear and slow shape recovery over
a broad temperature range, temperature gradient anneal (TGA)
method, annealing cold worked Ti–Ni based alloys in a furnace
with a temperature gradient, was developed [5,6] based on the
fact that transformation temperatures of cold worked Ti–Ni alloys
change largely depending on the annealing temperature [7,8].
From the TGA method, Ti–Ni alloy wires which have transforma-
tion temperatures varying continuously along the length direction
were obtained successfully. It was found that the rate of shape
recovery (dε/dT, ε: strain, T: temperature) of TGA treated Ti–Ni
∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 55 751 5307; fax: +82 55 759 1745.
E-mail address: tahynam@gsnu.ac.kr (T.-h. Nam).
alloys was much smaller than that of Ti–Ni alloys isothermally
annealed at a specific temperature [5]. Therefore, it was concluded
that the TGA is an effective method for obtaining Ti–Ni alloys
with linear and slow shape recovery over the wide temperature
window.
For a proportional control, Ti–Ni wires with various lengths
are required depending on application cases. However, the TGA
method seems to have a disadvantage from a practical point of
view because it is inconvenient to develop a temperature gradi-
ent in Ti–Ni alloys with various lengths in a furnace. A simple and
novel method which can develop a temperature gradient in Ti–Ni
wires without a furnace is desirable.
The electrical resistivity of Ti–Ni alloys is known to be high
enough for the Joule heating by passing an electrical current.
Most of applications of Ti–Ni alloys for microelectrical mechani-
cal systems (MEMSs) adopt the Joule heating because actuation of
Ti–Ni based devices is much simplified. Effects of electrical cur-
rent, diameter of the wire, convection heat transfer coefficient
and alloy compositions on Joule heating characteristics have been
investigated [9–11]. Most previous studies assumed a homoge-
neous temperature profile over the whole Ti–Ni alloy wire from
the Joule heating. However, an inhomogeneous temperature pro-
file is expected because heating is applied only for a portion of the
wire, and thus a temperature gradient would be developed in the
wire by the Joule heating. Under this circumstance, the information
about the spatially varying temperature profile by the Joule heating

0925-8388/$ – see front matter © 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jallcom.2009.10.069
 S.-y. Yang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 490 (2010) L28–L32 L29

distribution, the problem is simplified by a one-dimensional case,

and the temperature depends only on the axial coordinate along the
wire. Using the Green function method, the closed-form solution
can be derived as follows: when A is the constant cross-sectional
area of the wire, a differential equation taking account of the energy
conservation is written for an infinitesimal length dx by [12],
 
∂T ∂ ∂T
A dxcp = kA dx − hlc dx(T − T∞ ) + f (x) dx (1)
∂t ∂x ∂x

where  is the density of the shape memory material, cp is the spe-

cific heat, and k is the thermal conductivity. The parameter h is
the convectional heat transfer coefficient, lc is the circumferential
length, and T∞ is the ambient gas temperature. f(x) represents the
electric heating per unit length. In the Joule heating of the SMA
wire, electric heating is applied only for the wire in −L ≤ x ≤ L.
If the electric resistance per unit length is R, and the current
is I, and the Joule heat fraction is , then f(x) is given by I2 R
for −L ≤ x ≤ L and vanishes elsewhere. Since the Af (austenite fin-
ish) temperature is about the room temperature, the latent heat
due to the phase transformation will be neglected. Simplifying
Fig. 1. Schematic view of the apparatus for measuring temperature profiles.
Eq. (1),

∂T k ∂2 T h lc I 2 R
= − (T − T∞ ) + for − L ≤ x ≤ L (2)
of a SMA wire will be very helpful for the design of the annealing ∂t cp ∂x 2 cp A cp A
heat treatment process.
The purpose of the present study is to investigate the temper- The thermal diffusivity ˛ can be defined by k/cp . The relaxation
ature profile developed by the Joule heating using experimental time  c for a transient diffusion equation is determined by the
measurements and numerical analyses. A closed-form expression longest wavelength component of a periodic initial condition [13].
of the spatial temperature variation is provided for a SMA wire, and In our case, inhomogeneous electric current is applied on a finite
the result was appreciated and evaluated through the comparison interval, and taking 2L as the half of the longest wavelength, the
with the experiment and the finite element analysis. Experimental relaxation time can be
demonstrations from Ti–45Ni–5Cu (at%) alloy wires are displayed
1
 2L 2
to show the feasibility of the Joule heating for fabricating a Ti–Ni c = (3)
˛ 
actuator for the proportional control. Elongation vs. temperature
curve and stress vs. strain graph and DSC measurement result are The steady state temperature profile is obtained by setting the
set forth. time derivative 0. The solution can be derived using the Green
function K if the wire is infinitely long [14].
2. Experimental procedure
∂2 K
A Ti–45Ni–5Cu (at%) alloy ingot was prepared by vacuum induction melting − c 2 K = −ı(x − ), for − ∞ ≤ x,  ≤ ∞ (4)
and then hot rolled followed by cold rolling into a wire with a diameter of 1.0 mm. ∂x2
The final cold working ratio was 20%. Wire specimens for measuring temperature
profiles were cut from the cold worked wire and then mechanically polished with
and K(x;) → 0, as |x| → ∞,
an emery paper followed by electropolishing with an electrolyte which consists of where ı(x) is the Dirac delta function. The Green function K is given
93% CH3 COOH and 7% HClO4 in volume. The wires were heated by the Joule heat- by
ing. Fig. 1 shows an apparatus for measuring temperature profiles. Voltage drop
of 1.338 V was applied to the wire between C1 and C2 and the length of the Joule 1 −c|x−|
heating zone (distance between C1 and C2) was 30 mm. The total length of the
K(x; ) = e (5)
2c
wire was 50 mm. A temperature profile of the wire was measured from thermo-
couples welded at the surface of the wire after it was stabilized (after applying This Green function physically means the response at x due to
voltage drop of 1.338 V for 30 s in this study). After measuring the temperature the input at . The solution for a general heat source function g(x)
profile, the voltage drop kept applied for 600 s more to anneal the wire under tem-
is the superposition of the Green function.
perature gradient in the argon gas atmosphere. The measured temperature profiles
for the wires were compared with those estimated by an analytical method and the  ∞  ∞
finite element analysis. We also looked into the transformation temperatures and 1 −c|x−|
T (x) − T∞ = K(x; )g() d = e g() d,
deformation behavior of the SMA wires which were annealed by the Joule heating.
−∞ −∞
2c
Six samples (P1–P6) were taken from the Joule heated wire, and then subjected
to differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) with the cooling and heating rates of for − ∞ ≤ x ≤ ∞ (6)
0.17 K/s. Thermal cycling tests under the applied stress of 40 MPa with the cool-
ing and heating rates of 0.017 K/s and tensile tests with the strain rate of 10−3 /s
were conducted to study the deformation behavior of the annealed SMA wires by

By taking c = hlc /kA and g(x) = I2 R/kA, the steady state solu-
the Joule heating.
tion of Eq. (2) is written by
 ∞
3. Results and discussion 1 −c|x−|
T (x) − T∞ = e g() d
−∞
2c
To predict the temperature profile due to the Joule heating of the  
 
SMA wire, two kinds of numerical analysis were carried out. First, an hlc

L
1 kA I 2 R
analytic solution was derived for an infinitely long SMA wire. Next, = exp − x − 
d (7)
−L
2 hlc kA kA
the finite element heat transfer analysis was carried out for the wire
of finite length. To obtain an analytic solution of the temperature
L30 S.-y. Yang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 490 (2010) L28–L32

Fig. 2. (a) Temperature profiles calculated by the analytic method (solid line) and the finite element analysis (dotted line) under the condition in Table 1. Experimental values
(open circle) measured from the thermocouples welded at the surface of the sample are also shown. (b) The transient temperature behavior at the initial stage of the heating
was calculated by the finite element method at the center of the wire.

After integrating, the closed-form expression of the temperature Table 1

Numerical parameter values [16,17].
profile is obtained as follows:
⎧  
Parameter Value

⎪ 1
⎪
⎪ − e Q (x−L)
−e Q (x+L)
, for x < −L Diameter of wire 0.001 m
⎪
⎨ 2 Electric conductivity, [1/(ohm m)] 0.2581 × l06
T (x) − T∞ 1   Electric resistivity = l/(electric conductivity), r , [ohm m] 3.875 × 10−6
= − e−Q (x+L) + eQ (x−L) + 1, for − L ≤ x ≤ L
P ⎪ 2⎪
Electric resistance per unit length, R (r /A) 4.933 ohm/m
⎪
⎪   Joule heat fraction,  1.0
⎩ 1
e−Q (x−L) − e−Q (x+L) , for x > L Density,  6450 kg/m3
2 Specific heat, cp 322 J/kg K
(8) Thermal conductivity, k 15 J/sm K
Convection coefficient, h 650 J/sm2 K
Ambient temperature, T∞ 21 ◦ C

The temperature and its gradient are continuous everywhere.

There appear two parameters, P = I2 R/hlc and Q = hlc /kA. The
maximum temperature occurring at the center (x = 0) is given by
P(1 − e−QL ) + T∞ . The temperature at x = ±L is P/2(1 − e−2QL ) + T∞ .
The temperature gradient at x = −L is PQ/2(1 − e−2QL ). A charac-
teristic length or spatial distance for the temperature to decrease
from the value at x = L to the ambient temperature is 1/Q approx-
imately. This closed-form solution for the temperature profile can
provide guidelines for the annealing heat treatment of the SMA
wire. This analytic result will be compared with the result of the
three-dimensional finite element analysis and the experimentally
measured one.
Finite element analysis is carried out by the commercial finite
element software ABAQUS [15]. 800 quadratic 15-noded wedge ele-
ments are used to model the SMA wire. The total length of the wire
is 50 mm and the Joule heating is applied only for 30 mm. Convec-
tive heat transfer was considered in terms of the film property of
the boundary surface of the wire. The numerical input values are
listed in Table 1.
Most thermal and electric properties are available from Refs.
[16,17]. The electric conductivity can be obtained by gauging the
current and the voltage drop between two points. In our experi-

Fig. 3. (a and b) DSC curves of the Joule heated specimen. (c) Transformation temperatures.
 S.-y. Yang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 490 (2010) L28–L32
Fig. 4. (a) Elongation vs. temperature curve, and (b) stress vs. strain curve, obtained from the Joule heated Ti–45Ni–5Cu (at%) wire.
ments, the mean voltage was 1.338 V and the mean current was
9.04 A across the heating zone. The mean electric power input was
12.09 W. From these data, the electric resistance of the SMA wire
was 4.933 /m. The relatively unknown properties were the Joule
heat fraction factor  and the convection heat transfer coefficient
h. By calibrating the Joule heat fraction factor and the convec-
tion heat transfer coefficient, with other property values fixed,
the experimental temperature profile was fitted well when  = 1
and h = 650 J/sm2 K. The convection coefficient value is higher com-
pared with the typical value of air, 150 J/sm2 K [17]. We think the
discrepancy stems from attachment of thermocouples or effect of
contact resistance. Thermocouples can enhance heat dissipation
and energy loss. Contact resistance at the joining of the SMA rod
and electric wire was neglected in this study. But it can also cause
a significant energy loss, and this effect needs investigation in the
future work.
Fig. 2(a) displays the steady state temperature profiles cal-
culated by the analytic method and the finite element analysis
using the parameter values in Table 1 and the experimental mea-
surement. The numerical results are well coincident with the
experimental one except that the experimental profile displays a
sharper peak at the center. This effect may be due to the heating of
the gas atmosphere at the center, and more research will be neces-
sary to probe the reason. From the experimental result, it is found
that a temperature gradient from 504 K to 413 K is developed by
the Joule heating. Therefore, it is also concluded that the Joule heat-
ing is an effective method to develop a temperature gradient in a
Ti–45Ni–5Cu alloy.
The transient temperature behavior at the initial stage of the
heating is shown in Fig. 2(b). This result is calculated at the center
of the wire by the finite element method. The temperature increases
from the initial ambient temperature 294 K to the final saturated
temperature 483 K within 10 s, suggesting that the Joule heating
longer than 10 s is sufficient for obtaining a steady state temper-
ature profile in the sample. Based on the result of Fig. 2(b), the
temperature measurement in Fig. 1 was carried out after passing
the electric current for 30 s.
In order to measure the transformation temperatures for the
wire annealed by the Joule heating, DSC measurements were made.
Six samples (P1–P6) with a length of 5 mm were prepared by cutting
the wire between C1 and C2 as indicated in Fig. 1. Fig. 3(a) and (b)
shows the DSC curves obtained during cooling and heating, respec-
tively. One DSC peak due to the B2-B19’ transformation is found
on every cooling and heating curve, which was confirmed by X-ray
diffraction. From Fig. 3(a) and (b), Ms and Mf (the B2-B19’ transfor-
mation start and finish temperature, respectively), As and Af (the
B19’-B2 transformation start and finish temperature, respectively),
M* (the peak temperature on cooling curve) and A* (the peak tem-
perature on heating curve) are measured and then plotted against
L31
the sample position in Fig. 3(c). It is found that the transforma-
tion window for B2-B19’ transformation, i.e., Ms − Mf and Af − As
increases as the sampling location moves from the center part (P3
and P4) to the end part of the wire, although M* and A* keep con-
stant. The wide temperature window, especially in the samples of
P1 and P6, is related with low temperature annealing below 423 K
and large temperature gradient (∼100 K) as seen in Fig. 2(a). Similar
wide DSC peaks have been reported in Ti–Ni alloys annealed at low
temperature after cold working [18]. In contrast to P1 and P6, the
transformation window in P3 and P4 is relatively narrow, which is
ascribed to a small temperature gradient less than 20 K as seen in
Fig. 2(a).
Deformation behavior of the sample annealed by the Joule heat-
ing was investigated by a thermal cycling test under the applied
stress of 40 MPa and a tensile test at 333 K which is higher than
the highest Af in the sample by 5 K. Elongation-temperature and
stress–strain curves obtained are shown in Fig. 4(a) and (b), respec-
tively. Transformation elongation associated with the B2-B19’
transformation occurs on cooling, which is recovered completely
on heating as shown in Fig. 4(a). The rate of shape recovery (dε/dT)
is measured to be about 0.02%/K, which is much smaller than that
of a Ti–45Ni–5Cu alloy annealed at a fixed temperature (∼0.5%/K).
In the previous study, the rate of shape recovery obtained from
a Ti–50.0Ni annealed in a furnace with temperature gradient was
found to be 0.12–0.43%/K depending on the annealing temperature
range [5]. This means that the rate of shape recovery of the Joule
heated samples is comparable to that of the TGA treated sample.
In Fig. 4(b), a unique Lüders-type deformation with a pro-
gressively increasing stress from 340 MPa to 380 MPa is observed,
suggesting a progressive increase in the stress level required for
the stress-induced B2-B19’ transformation. The lowest stress of
340 MPa is possibly for the stress-induced transformation of the
part annealed at the highest temperature (P3, P4), while the highest
stress of 380 MPa is for the portion annealed at the lowest temper-
ature (P1, P6). Similar deformation behavior has been reported in
a TGA treated Ti–50.2Ni (at%) alloy [6]. From Figs. 3 and 4, it is
concluded that the Joule heating method is simple but effective to
obtain Ti–45Ni–5Cu alloy with low rate of shape recovery, which
is beneficial for a proportional control.
4. Conclusions
The temperature profile generated by the Joule heating of a
shape memory alloy wire was researched by experimental mea-
surements and numerical analyses. An analytic solution and the
finite element method gave satisfactory predictions of the temper-
ature profile agreeing with the experimental results. To assure the
accuracy of the numerical methods, more analysis will be necessary
for different voltage inputs and wire lengths in the future work. The
L32 S.-y. Yang et al. / Journal of Alloys and Compounds 490 (2010) L28–L32
Joule heating method was much simpler compared with the con-
ventional temperature gradient anneal (TGA) method because an
annealing furnace is not necessary. It was shown that the range
of inhomegeneous temperature profile was wide as much as 91 K
by applying 1.338 V to 30 mm of a Ti–45Ni–5Cu (at%) wire speci-
mens. Samples showed a low shape recovery rate (dε/dT, ε: strain,
T: temperature) of 0.02%/K and a unique Lüders-type deformation
with a progressively increasing stress from 340 MPa to 380 MPa.
These results prove that the Joule heating method is effective to
fabricate an SMA actuator for proportional control.
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the Korea Research Foundation
Grant funded by the Korean Government (MEST)(KRF-2008-220-
D00061).
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