On magnetostrictive materials and their use in adaptive structures

Magnetostrictive materials are routinely employed as actuator and sensor elements in a wide variety of noise and vibration control problems. In infrastructural applications, other technologies such as hydraulic actuation, piezoelectric materials and more recently, magnetorheological fluids, are being favored for actuation and sensing purposes. These technologies have reached a degree of technical maturity and in some cases, cost effectiveness, which justify their broad use in infrastructural applications. Advanced civil structures present new challenges in the areas of condition monitoring and repair, reliability, and high-authority actuation which motivate the need to explore new methods and materials recently developed in the areas of materials science and transducer design. This paper provides an overview of a class of materials that because of the large force, displacement, and energy conversion effciency that it can provide is being considered in a growing number of quasistatic and dynamic applications. Since magnetostriction involves a bidirectional energy exchange between magnetic and elastic states, magnetostrictive materials provide mechanisms both for actuation and sensing. This paper provides an overview of materials, methods and applications with the goal to inspire novel solutions based on magnetostrictive materials for the design and control of advanced infrastructural systems.