Investigations of polycrystalline magnetic shape memory alloys

The industries are interested in development of polycrystalline materials with magnetic shape memory effect. The paper describes experimental investigations depending on temperature of polycrystalline MSMA with composition of nominal Ni50Mn30Ga20. The aim for our future work is to find a way for the development of forming technology, which allows to produce a texture within the NiMnGa-material. The alloy was prepared by arc induction melting pure constituents and it was annealed for 48 h at 900 °C. The casting specimens were characterized by using EDX, optical microscopy and XRD. The benefit of the selected MSMA-composition was the high temperature of martensitic transformation, but a mixed structure (tetragonal and orthorhombic) was determinated by X-ray measurements.