Magnetostriction and structural characterization of Fe-Ga-X (X = Co, Ni, Al) mold-cast bulk

In Fe85Ga15, Fe was substituted by Co or Ni, and Ga by Al in order to improve magnetostriction of these polycrystalline materials. The maximum value of the longitudinal magnetostriction of ternary alloys exceeds that found for binary Fe85Ga15, however, the transverse magnetostriction is always positive. The ternary alloys prepared by copper mould-casting technique exhibit large grains. The largest linear magnetostriction and the largest mean grain size were obtained for the Al substituted sample, which values of 75 x 10(-6) and 780 mu m, respectively. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.