Design, processing and characterization of mechanically alloyed galfenol & lightly rare-earth doped FeGa alloys as smart materials for actuators and transducers

Abstract

Smart materials find a wide range of application areas due to their varied response to external stimuli [1][2][3]. The different areas of application can be in our day to day life, aerospace, civil engineering applications [4], and mechatronics [5] to name a few.Magnetostrictive materials are a class of smart materials that can convert energy between the magnetic and elastic states [2,6]. Galfenol is a magnetostrictive alloy comprised primarily of the elements iron (Fe) and gallium (Ga) [7]. Galfenol exhibits a unique combination of mechanical and magnetostrictive (magnetic) properties that legacy smart materials do not [8,9]. Galfenol's ability to function while in tension, mechanical robustness and high Curie temperature (600 °C) is attracting interest for the alloy's use in I want to thank to Dr. Yajie Chen, for his unconditional helps and great scientific ideas during my PhD studies.I would also want to thank all my lab mate in CM3IC for their great collaborations, supports and helps. I greatly appreciate the contributions of Dr. Radhika Barua for scientific part of this dissertation. I also want to thank my committee member, Prof.Yongmin Liu. Many thanks goes to our collaborators in Baotou Research Institute of Rare earth in China (L. Jiang's group) and M. R. Koblischka's group in Saarland University in Germany.Last but not least, I would like to specially thank and express my gratitude to my husband Dr. Ramis Movassagh for his understanding and love during the past few years.His professional and moral support, encouragement and unlimited patience was in the end what made this dissertation possible. My parents, Sharif and Parvin and my dear brother, Saeid receive my deepest gratitude and love for their dedication and the many years of support despite being far from me. This dissertation is dedicated to them. 6 TABLE OF CONTENTSdesign, Processing and Characterization of lightly rare-earth doped Fega alloys as smart materials