An in-depth study of a thin-wall origami-inspired NiTi structure fabricated through laser powder bed fusion

This study aims to advance the field of additive manufacturing of NiTi shape memory alloys by providing a comprehensive functional analysis of a complex NiTi structure fabricated using laser powder bed fusion. While most of the literature on additive manufacturing of NiTi has been focused on the pseudoelastic effect, this research explores both pseudoelastic and shape memory effect. The selected geometry is origami inspired with wall thickness of 0.45 mm. Samples were fabricated through an AM400 of Renishaw starting with a NiTi powder with 50.8 at. % of Ni and followed a double-stage heat treatment, at 950 °C for 5.5 h and 450 °C for 15 min. The heat-treated cells were characterized to assess at first the phase transformation temperatures through thermal analysis and then both the pseudoelastic and the shape memory effects (analyzing both free and under load shape recovery), with maximum load ranging from 600 to 1500 N for pseudoelasticity, from 600 to 1000 N for free shape recovery an...