High Power Rare Earth Magnetostrictive Materials

Magnetic materials capable of producing strains greater than 10 ^-3 have received con siderable attention over the last few years. This is partly due to recent interest in fields such as de formable surfaces, active vibration control, and precision machining, where large forces and small displacements are required, and partly due to the commercial availability of the new materials. These magnetostrictive materials have the advantage of functioning under adverse environmental conditions and elevated temperatures, plus the capability to regulate stress and displacements at low frequencies. In this paper, we review the properties of two high power magnetostrictive materials: (1) Tb _x Dy _1-x alloys and (2) Tb _x Dy _1-x Fe ₂ (Terfenol-D) alloys (0 ≤ x ≤ 1).