Ferromagnetic shape memory materials

Ferromagnetic shape memory materials are a new class of active materials which combine the properties of ferromagnetism with those of a diffusionless, reversible martensitic transformation. These materials have been the subject of recent study due to the unusually large magnetostriction exhibited in the martensitic phase. In this thesis we report the results of experiments which characterize the magnetic and magnetomechanical properties of both austenitic and martensitic phases of ferromagnetic shape memory material Ni2MnGa. In the high temperature cubic phase, anisotropy and magnetostriction constants are determined for a range of temperatures from 50°C down to the transformation temperature, with room temperature values of K1 = 2.7 +/- 104 ergs/cm3 and lambda100 = -145 muepsilon. In the low temperature tetragonal phase, the phenomenon of field-induced variant rearrangement is shown to produce anomalous results when traditional techniques for determining anisotropy and magnetostriction properties are employed. The requirement of single variant specimen microstructure is explained, and experiments performed on such a specimen confirm a uniaxial anisotropy within each martensitic variant with anisotropy constant Ku = 2.45 x 106 ergs/cm3 and a magnetostriction constant of lambdasv = -288 +/- 73 muepsilon. A series of magnetomechanical experiments investigate the effects of microstructure bias, repeated field cycling, varying field ramp rate, applied load, and specimen geometry on the variant rearrangement phenomenon in the martensitic phase. In general, the field-induced strain is found to be a function of the variant microstructure. Experiments in which the initial microstructure is biased towards a single variant state with an applied load generate one-time strains of 4.3%, while those performed with a constant bias stress of 5 MPa generate reversible strains of 0.5% over a period of 50 cycles. An increase in the applied field ramp rate is shown to reduce the field-induced strain, indicating that twin boundary mobility and relaxation effects also play a role in determining the total strain. Experiments performed with increasing applied loads indicate the blocking stress occurs around 7--8 MPa, and a set of experiments using three rectangular specimens with varying length/width aspect ratios show that specimen shape affects both the characteristics and magnitudes of the strain vs. field curves performed with various applied loads.