TY - JOUR A1 - Fareed, Adnan A1 - Rosalie, Julian M. A1 - Kar, Satyakam A1 - Fähler, Sebastian A1 - Maaß, Robert T1 - Small-scale functional fatigue of a Ni-Mn-Ga Heusler alloy JF - Acta Materialia N2 - Functional fatigue of shape-memory alloys is a considerable threat to the reliable service of actuation devices. Here, we demonstrate the essentially degradation-free cyclic phase-transformation behavior of Ni-Mn-Ga microcrystals up to one million stress-driven superelastic cycles. Cyclic dissipation amounts to about 1/5 of the bulk counterpart and remains unaffected during cycling, even after the introduction of dislocation structures via plastic straining. Plastic yielding and the transformation stress largely exceed the known bulk values. However, the transformation-stress is found to depend on plastic pre-straining, which suggests that the size-affected transformation stress is sensitive to the initial defect structure and that it can be tuned by a targeted introduction of dislocations. These findings demonstrate the high suitability of Ni-Mn-Ga as a robust shape-memory alloy in small-scale functional device engineering. KW - Superelasticity KW - Shape-memory alloys KW - Functional fatigue KW - Ni-Mn-Ga PY - 2024 UR - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:kobv:b43-600695 DO - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actamat.2024.119988 VL - 274 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - Elsevier B.V. AN - OPUS4-60069 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER - TY - CONF A1 - Waske, Anja A1 - Fähler, Sebastian A1 - Fähler, Sebastian T1 - Thermomagnetic generators with magnetocaloric materials for harvesting low grade waste heat N2 - To date, there are very few technologies available for the conversion of low-temperature waste heat into electricity. Thermomagnetic generators are one approach proposed more than a century ago. Such devices are based on a cyclic change of magnetization with temperature. This switches a magnetic flux and, according to Faraday’s law, induces a voltage. Here we give an overview on our research, covering both materials and systems. We demonstrate that guiding the magnetic flux with an appropriate topology of the magnetic circuit improves the performance of thermomagnetic generators by orders of magnitude. Through a combination of experiments and simulations, we show that a pretzel-like topology results in a sign reversal of the magnetic flux. This avoids the drawbacks of previous designs, namely, magnetic stray fields, hysteresis and complex geometries of the thermomagnetic material. Though magnetocaloric materials had been the first choice also for thermomagnetic generators, they require some different properties, which we illustrate with Ashby plots for materials selection. Experimentally we compare La-Fe-Co-Si and Gd plates in the same thermomagnetic generator. Furthermore, we discuss corrosion and deterioration under cyclic use is a severe problem occurring during operation. To amend this, composite plates using polymer as a matrix have been suggested previously. T2 - Dresden Days of Magnetocalorics CY - Dresden, Germany DA - 13.11.2023 KW - Thermomagnetic material KW - Waste heat recovery KW - Generator PY - 2023 AN - OPUS4-58865 LA - eng AD - Bundesanstalt fuer Materialforschung und -pruefung (BAM), Berlin, Germany ER -