Shape memory alloys (SMA) are functional materials that are being applied in practically all industries, from aerospace, automotive, robotics and biomedical sectors, and at present the scientific and technologic communities of SMA are looking to get the advantages offered by the new processing technologies of additive manufacturing (AM). However, the use of AM to produce functional materials, like SMA, constitutes a real challenge because of the particularly well controlled microstructure required to exhibit the functional property of shape memory. Most of the efforts are being focused on AM of Ti-Ni alloys, but there is a growing interest in Cu-based SMA due to their good functional properties of shape memory and superelasticity, even at high temperature. In the present work, the design of the complete AM processing route, from powder atomization and using two different methods of AM, is developed and the finally obtained thermomechanical properties are compared to those obtained by classical powder metallurgy route, using exactly the same Cu-Al-Ni SMA powders.

Nowadays, there is a great interest in developing new families of shape memory alloys (SMA) exhibiting thermomechanical properties beyond the classical ones obtained with the well-known NiTi SMA and the derived ternary alloys. Indeed, a great effort is being focused in developing high-temperature SMA, like the ones based on NiTiHf/Zr or on Cu-Al-Ni, and also on the development of SMA that could be successfully implemented at micro and nanoscale for smart micro electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) applications. However, new hydrogen-based energy sources, high-power nuclear fusion and the emerging quantum computing technologies, as well as the classical superconducting ones, require low-temperature working environments. All of them need the use of sensors and actuators at cryogenic temperatures, but, at present, there are not shape memory alloys (SMA) offering the possibility of operating as sensors and actuators, valves for instance, at so low temperatures, below liquid nitrogen.