Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 February 2011
An experimental investigation was carried out to study the crack initiation and growth in a single-edge notched NiTi shape memory alloy sheet under tension. It is observed that a crack initiated at the tip of a V-shape notch before the peak axial load was reached and it grew steadily across the width of the NiTi sheet until final fracture. In-plane crack-tip deformation fields at various stages of the crack growth were measured based on an image correlation technique and the crack-tip opening displacement (CTOD) and crack-tip opening angle (CTOA) were subsequently determined. The fracture surface of the NiTi sheet was dimpled based on scanning electron microscopy examinations.