Magnetoelastic bending of Galfenol for sensor applications

This project investigates the behavior of iron-gallium (Galfenol) alloys in elastic bending to facilitate the design concepts for using Galfenol in novel sensor applications at the macro to nanoscale. A series of experiments are conducted on the magnetic response of cantilevered beams to dynamic bending loads. The samples studied include polycrystalline and single crystal rods of varied dimension with compositions ranging from 16 to 21 at % Ga. Results of initial testing show that sinusoidal bending produces measurable induction that increases with applied magnetic bias. Other results examine the effect of material composition and sensor location, as well as the broadband response. (c) 2005 American Institute of Physics.