Enhancement of magnetostriction in internally biased Terfernol-D 2-2 composites

A key issue in the fabrication of Terfenol-D 2-2 composites with internal magnetic field biasing is the selection of appropriate con-stituent materials to obtain high magnetostriction while keeping optimum magnetomechanical properties. The fabrication process is costly and time consuming and, therefore, numerical methods to predict their properties are useful. In this paper, finite element analysis (FEA) of the magnetostriction of such composites has been carried out using the commercial package ABAQUS. It has been shown that composites fabricated using Nd2 Fe14 B for the permanent magnetic material layers possess the highest internal fields within the Ter- fenol-D layers, although the overall strain of these composites is limited to approximately 800 10 6 due to the high elastic modulus of Nd2 Fe14 B. Simulations showed that the strain can be enhanced by choosing a different material with a lower elastic modulus for the permanent magnetic layer even though the internal field is lower. The simulations showed that the strain can increase by 12% if the Nd2 Fe14 B layer is substituted by SmCo5 ; by 23% if it is substituted by Sm2 Co17 ; and by 35% if it is substituted by Alnico.