In vitro thermomechanical ageing of Ni-Ti alloys.

NiTi alloy is used as a biomaterial due to its pseudoelastic behaviour. It exhibits a great potential in dental and orthopedic applications where constant correcting loads are required. In order to use such materials, it is necessary to investigate the effect of the cyclic straining upon the transformation stresses and temperatures of the material, the effect of thermal cycling and the ageing at different temperatures and times of heat treatment. The aim of this work is to study the load and thermal cycling and the ageing with the temperature of a superelastic NiTi shape memory alloy.