Positron Study of Origin of Thermoelastic Martensite Stabilization for a Cu-Zn-Al Alloy

A series of Cu-23Zn-10Al (at.%) alloy specimens subjected to different heat-treatment processes have been studied by means of Doppler broadening technique of positron annihilation combined with mechanical test. Results show that the mechanism of quenched-in vacancies, instead of the other suggested ones, plays a dominant role in thermoelastic martensite stabilization of Cu-based shape memory alloy. Knowing the character of the movement of quenched-in vacancies and eliminating them as rapidly as possible are the basis for further optimizing heat-treatment process to obtain desired shape memory performance.