Effects of laser cutting on the chemical composition and phase transformation capacity in Cu-Al-Mn shape memory alloy sheets

Abstract

Application of laser cutting operations on thin sheets of Cu-Al-Mn shape memory alloys can be used for shaping, or for producing different types of holes and hole patterns within the SMA sheets. In this paper, the authors evaluate the effects of laser cutting under different process parameters on the phase and chemical composition in Cu-Al-Mn sheet samples. The effects are observed using optical and scanning electron microscopy (OM and SEM), energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).