Black Body Cavity Apparatus for Measuring the Emissivity of Nickel-Titanium-Based Shape-Memory Alloys and Other Metals

Nickel-titanium (NiTi)-based shape-memory alloys (SMAs) have various applications in biomedicine, actuators, aerospace technologies, and elastocaloric devices, due to their shape-memory and super-elastic effects. These effects are induced in SMAs by a reversible martensitic phase transformation. This transformation can be achieved by applying stress or temperature differences. It is extremely difficult to measure the temperature of NiTi elements with contact thermometers because they disturb the phase transformation phenomenon. An alternative approach is contactless infrared thermography for which accurate emissivity data are mandatory. To determine the temperature distribution in NiTi components with an infrared camera, a newly constructed apparatus is presented to measure the emissivity of metals. For this purpose, a state-of-the-art infrared camera was employed to analyze the emissivity behavior with temperature, especially during the phase transformation. The emissivity of the NiTi samples was systematically studied by comparing them with a reference-quality black body cavity (BBC) having an emissivity better than 0.995. Calibration measurements revealed that the maximum deviation of the BBC temperature measured with the infrared camera was only 0.15% (0.45 K) from its temperature measured with the built-in contact thermometers. The apparatus was validated by measuring the emissivity of a polished aluminum sample and found to be in good agreement with literature data, particularly for temperatures above 340 K. Finally, the emissivity of two rough and one polished NiTi samples was measured covering the temperature range from 313 K to 423 K with an expanded uncertainty of about 0.02 (\(k=2\)). The studied NiTi samples have an atomic percent composition of \(\hbox {Ni}_{42.5}\) \(\hbox {Ti}_{49.9}\) \(\hbox {Cu}_{7.5}\) \(\hbox {Cr}_{0.1}\). We observed that the emissivity of NiTi varies between 0.17 and 0.31 depending on temperature. As the temperature rises, the emissivity increases rapidly during the phase transformation, and it decreases gradually beyond the austenite finish temperature. In addition, the emissivity of NiTi depends on the microstructure of the martensite and austenite phases and the surface roughness of the samples.