Calibration and Finite Element Implementation of an Energy-Based Material Model for Shape Memory Alloys

Abstract

Numerical simulations are a powerful tool to analyze the complex thermo-mechanically coupled material behavior of shape memory alloys during product engineering. The benefit of the simulations strongly depends on the quality of the underlying material model. In this contribution, we discuss a variational approach which is based solely on energetic considerations and demonstrate that unique calibration of such a model is sufficient to predict the material behavior at varying ambient temperature. In the beginning, we recall the necessary equations of the material model and explain the fundamental idea. Afterwards, we focus on the numerical implementation and provide all information that is needed for programing. Then, we show two different ways to calibrate the model and discuss the results. Furthermore, we show how this model is used during real-life industrial product engineering.