Tohoku University · Materials Science
Professor Toshihiro Omori's research lab specializes in the development and fundamental understanding of advanced shape memory and superelastic alloys, with a focus on iron-based systems. The lab investigates martensitic transformations, magnetic phase transitions, and microstructure-property relationships to engineer materials with tailored temperature-dependent mechanical behavior. Key research directions include designing alloys with near-zero or tunable temperature dependence of superelastic stress, achieving large magnetic field-induced strains, and controlling grain growth for enhanced functional properties. The lab also explores the role of nano-scale precipitates and subgrain structures in enabling abnormal grain growth and single-crystal formation in shape memory alloys.
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
In superelastic alloys, large deformation can revert to a memorized shape after removing the stress. However, the stress increases with increasing temperature, which limits the practical use over a wide temperature range. Polycrystalline Fe-Mn-Al-Ni shape memory alloys show a small temperature dependence of the superelastic stress because of a small transformation entropy change brought about by a magnetic contribution to the Gibbs energies. For one alloy composition, the superelastic stress var
In polycrystalline materials, grain growth occurs at elevated temperatures to reduce the total area of grain boundaries with high energy. The grain growth rate usually slows down with annealing time, making it hard to obtain grains larger than a millimeter in size. We report a crystal growth method that employs only a cyclic heat treatment to obtain a single crystal of more than several centimeters in a copper-based shape-memory alloy. This abnormal grain growth phenomenon results from the forma
Shape memory alloys recover their original shape after deformation, making them useful for a variety of specialized applications. Superelastic behavior begins at the critical stress, which tends to increase with increasing temperature for metal shape memory alloys. Temperature dependence is a common feature that often restricts the use of metal shape memory alloys in applications. We discovered an iron-based superelastic alloy system in which the critical stress can be optimized. Our Fe-Mn-Al-Cr
Martensitic and magnetic properties of Fe–Mn–Ga single and polycrystalline alloys were investigated. It was found that Fe–Mn–Ga alloys exhibit martensitic transformation from the paramagnetic L21 Heusler parent phase to the ferromagnetic L10 martensite phase. The martensitic transformation temperatures increased by about 20 K by the application of a magnetic field of 7 T, and a metamagnetic phase transition was observed. In addition, a magnetic field-induced strain of 0.6% associated with magnet
Effects of grain size on superelastic properties in Fe-34Mn-15Al-7.5Ni alloy wires with a ⟨110⟩ fiber-texture were investigated by cyclic tensile tests. It was confirmed that the critical stress for induced martensitic transformation and the superelastic strain are functions of relative grain size d/D (d: mean grain diameter, D: wire diameter), and that the critical stress is proportional to (1–d/D)2 as well as in Cu-based shape memory alloys. A large superelastic strain of about 5% was obtained
Microstructure and martensitic transformation yielding a magnetic change were investigated for Fe43.5Mn34Al15Ni7.5 alloy with B2-type fine precipitates. Thermoelastic martensitic transformation from the ferromagnetic parent phase to the weak magnetic martensite with a nano-twinned fcc structure was confirmed. High-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopic observation revealed that a β particle of about 10 nm maintains coherency with the matrix martensite phase, even tho
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