Experimental and theoretical study of the nonlinear response of agiant magnetostrictive rod

In this paper, a magnetomechanical coupling constitutive relation of the giant magnetostrictive material was investigated experimentally and theoretically. A grain-oriented magnetostrictive rod of iron and rare earth was tested under a combined magnetomechanical loading. Two types of experimental curves were obtained, i.e., the magnetostrictive curve of the extensional strain vs the magnetic field, and the curve of the magnetic polarization intensity vs the pre-stress. A new theoretical constitutive model, based on the density of domain switching, is developed. Comparison of the theoretical predictions with the experimental results indicates that this model can capture the main characteristics of the magnetoelastic coupling deformation of a giant magnetostrictive rod. The project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (10025209, 10132010, 10102007)