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research papers
X-ray diffraction experiments were carried out to prove that X-ray methods can be used to assess strain-induced fatigue in CuAlBe shape-memory alloys. The pseudoelastic fatigue behaviour of CuAlBe single crystals presents a strong decrease of the critical stress of the martensitic transformation. During the fatigue test, the austenitic lattice exhibits a lattice distortion. This lattice distortion evolves during the fatigue test: the austenitic cubic lattice (β1) tends to transform gradually towards an orthorhombic one. Various hypotheses concerning this lattice distortion are proposed.