In the present article, a set of thermodynamic problems of the temperature-induced thermoelastic martensitic transformation is discussed. It is shown that the constitutive thermodynamic force balance equations describing the temperature dependence of martensite volume fraction on the global hysteresis cycle can be directly derived from the energy conservation law where the additional irreversible work is taken into account. Resulting force balance occurs between the classical (‘chemical’) driving force, on the one hand, and the so-called nonchemical forces representing the elastic, interfacial and other energy contributions, on the other hand. The procedure of finding the nonchemical contributions from the calorimetric experiments is developed and applied to the analysis of DSC measurements for the CuZnAl and CuAlNi shape-memory alloys. Finally, the problem of thermoelastic martensitic transformation is discussed on the basis of the microscopic theoretical approach.