A review on laser welding of Ni-Ti based shape memory alloy

NiTinol, the functional advanced material with shape memory effect (SME), is largely used for different industrial applications, including biomedical, automotive, aerospace, and power plants. The superior functional aspects of the material, namely superelasticity (SE), SME, and biocompatibility, offer numerous advantages to design engineers. However, some complexity arises in the method of fabrication of the material and sets restrictions on the extensive utilization of the material for the manufacturing of products with complex contours. The major issues related to fabrication of the material are limited machinability and weldability of the material. The problem of weldability is ended with the formation of brittle intermetallic compounds, modification in shape memory behavior, alteration in phase transformation temperature, reduction in strength, and changes in superelastic behavior. Even, the joining of NiTinol to other materials creates a lot more problems owing to the variation in thermophysical and chemical properties of different base materials. Hence, an in-depth research in the field of welding of NiTinol is very much needed. So far many researchers studied different aspects of joining NiTinol with similar and dissimilar material combinations. This chapter presents a thorough evaluation of laser welding of NiTinol as laser welding is a cost-effective and dependable method for joining of NiTinol alloy.