Effect of tellurium on machinability and mechanical property of CuAlMnZn shape memory alloy

The microstructure transition, shape memory effect, machinability and mechanical property of the CuAlMnZn alloy with and without Te have been studied using X-ray diffraction analysis, chips observation and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), tensile strength test and differential scanning calorimeter (DSC), and semi-quantitative shape memory effect (SME) test. The particles with richer Te dispersedly distributed in grain interior and boundary with size of 2–5 μm. After the addition of Te, the CuAlMnZnTe alloy machinability has been effectively increased to approach that of BZn15–24–1.5 and its shape memory property remains the same as the one of CuAlMnZn alloy. The CuAlMnZn shape memory alloys with and without Te both have good ductility as annealed at 700 °C for 15 min.