Effect of Aspect Ratio and Boundary Conditions in Modeling Shape Memory Alloy Nanostructures with 3D Coupled Dynamic Phase-Field Theories

The behavior of shape memory alloy (SMA) nanostructures is influenced by strain rate and temperature evolution during dynamic loading. The coupling between temperature, strain, and strain rate is essential to capture inherent thermomechanical behavior in SMAs. In this paper, we propose a new 3D phase-field model that accounts for two-way coupling between mechanical and thermal physics. We use the strain-based Ginzburg-Landau potential for cubic-to-tetragonal phase transformations. The variational formulation of the developed model is implemented in the isogeometric analysis framework to overcome numerical challenges. We have observed a complete disappearance of the out-of-plane martensitic variant in a very high aspect ratio SMA domain as well as the presence of three variants in equal portions in a low aspect ratio SMA domain. The dependence of different boundary conditions on the microstructure morphology has been examined energetically. The tensile tests on rectangular prism nanowires, using the displacement based loading, demonstrate the shape memory effect and pseudoelastic behavior. We have also observed that higher strain rates, as well as the lower aspect ratio domains, resulting in high yield stress and phase transformations occur at higher stress during dynamic axial loading.