A class of shape memory alloy constitutive model based on a new set of internal variables

In this paper we use the set of internal variables recently proposed by the authors to introduce a class of constitutive models for shape memory alloys. Such a class is based on the thermodynamics of irreversible processes with internal variables. A measure of martensite fraction and a measure of the preferred direction of variants are used as internal variables, describing thermo-elastic reversible martensitic phase transformation and stress-induced martensite reorientation, respectively. We identify some constitutive models available in the literature and show that they belong to the introduced class of models. Moreover, we compare three constitutive models with two sets of experimental data available in the literature