Determining Micromechanical Strain in Nitinol

Nitinol is a superelastic alloy made of equal parts nickel and titanium. Due to its unique shape memory properties, nitinol is used to make medical stents, lifesaving devices used to allow blood flow in occluded arteries. Micromechanical models and even nitinol-specific finite element analysis (FEA) software are insufficient for unerringly predicting fatigue and resultant failure. Due to the sensitive nature of its application, a better understanding of nitinol on a granular scale is being pursued through X-ray diffraction techniques at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (SSRL) at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC). Through analysis of powder diffraction patterns of nitinol under increasing tensile loads, localized strain can be calculated. We compare these results with micromechanical predictions in order to advance nitinol-relevant FEA tools. From this we hope to gain a greater understanding of how nitinol fatigues under multi-axial loads