Copyright © 2011 Tech Science Press CMC, vol.23, no.3, pp.287-306, 2011 Fatigue Damage Accumulation in a Cu-based Shape Memory Alloy: Preliminary Investigation F. Casciati 1 , S. Casciati 2 , L. Faravelli 1 and A. Marzi 1 Abstract: The potential offered by the main features of shape memory alloys (SMA) in Structural Engineering applications is object of attention since two decades. The main issues concern the predictability of the material behavior and the fatigue lifetime of macro structural elements (as different from wire segments). In this paper, the fatigue characteristics, at given temperatures, of multigrain samples of a specific Cu-based alloy are investigated. The results of laboratory tests on bar specimens are discussed. The target is to model the manner in which the effects of several loading-unloading cycles of different amplitude cumulate. Keywords: Damage accumulation, Fatigue, Shape memory alloy, Training. 1 Introduction The potential offered by the main features of shape memory alloys (SMA) in Struc- tural Engineering applications is the object of scientific and technical attention since more than two decades [Graesser-Cozzarelli, 1991; Dolce et al., 2000; Ip, 2000; Des Roches et al., 2004; Casciati-Faravelli, 2008; Casciati-van der Eijk, 2008; Casciati-Faravelli, 2009; Saiidi et al., 2009]. In these studies, macrostruc- tural (multi grains) elements are considered and it is difficult to extend to them the large amount of physical investigations and numerical modeling developed in liter- ature for single crystal samples (see, for instance, [Meunier et al., 1996] as an early reference). Some fatigue studies for the classic Ni-Ti alloy were recently published [Nemat Nasser-Guo, 2006; Roy et al., 2008; Zhang et al., 2008; Bertacchini et al., 2009]. Studies of the fatigue behavior of single-grain Copper-based SMA are also avail- able in literature [Siredey-Eberhardt, 2000; Siredey et al. 2005]. In this paper, the fatigue characteristics, at given temperatures, of multigrain sam- ples of a specific Cu-based alloy are investigated. The main issues concern the 1 University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy 2 University of Catania, Siracusa, Italy, saracasciati@msn.com