Development of Terfenol-D transducer material

Terfenol-D, Tb1-xDyxFe2 (x congruent to 0.7), is successfully used as a magnetostrictive transducer material for low-frequency applications. To extend the frequency range of magnetostrictive transducers into the high kHz and MHz range, new materials processing techniques must be developed to minimize eddy current losses. The method that has demonstrated the greatest potential to date is based on rapid solidification by melt spinning to obtain thin strips of material. The objective of this program includes refining the casting procedure to yield ribbons with the [111] direction oriented along the length of the ribbon, with the (110) plane in the plane of the ribbon. The crystallographic orientation of the Terfenol-D ribbons have been controlled by varying the cooling rate of the melt-spinning process. The cooling rates were controlled by a number of parameters in the melt-spinning process and ribbons have been obtained with an enhancement of the (110) plane parallel to the surface of the ribbon. Magnetostrictive measurements under tensile stresses up to 3 MPa and magnetic fields up to 4 kOe yielded magnetostrictive displacements of 850 x 10(-6). (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-8979(98)25711-2].