The effect of grain orientation on the tensile‐compressive asymmetry of polycrystalline NiTi shape memory alloy

The purpose of the present study is to thoroughly understand the influence of crystallographic texture on the stress‐strain asymmetric behavior of polycrystalline NiTi shape memory alloy under tension and compression. To do this, a 3D thermo‐mechanical model has been implemented in a finite element program and textured and untextured polycrystalline NiTi have been considered. In our polycrystalline finite element model, each element represents one grain and a set of crystal orientations which approximate the initial crystallographic texture of the NiTi are assigned to the elements. From the calculated results, it is found that the crystallographic texture is the important reason for the tension‐compression asymmetry. For the textured polycrystal, the tension‐compression asymmetry can be observed clearly, but for the polycrystal containing randomly oriented grains, the stress‐strain curves show low levers of asymmetry between tensile and compressive loading, and the evolutions of martensite volume fractions are similar under two stress states.