Design of magnetostrictive/piezoelectric laminate composite for coil-less magnetic force control

We propose a magnetic force control device consisting of laminate composites of magnetostrictive material and piezoelectric material. The magnetic force control is based on energy conversion in the composite, such that the variation of magnetization of the magnetostrictive material induced by the piezoelectric material is converted to the variation of magnetic force by magnetic circuits. Because of the capacitive property of the piezoelectric material, the device requires little current in order to maintain control of a constant force. The laminate composite can be fabricated easily and in small sizes. In this paper, we report the magnetic force control properties of a composite of Terfenol-D and piezoelectric material plates (PZTs) and discuss the design of the laminate composite. Our theoretical magnetic force formulation derived by an equivalent magnetic analysis and finite-element analysis of strain distribution in the Terfenol-D, and measurements with various thicknesses of PZT demonstrated that there are appropriate thicknesses to provide large variation of the magnetic force and energy conversion efficiency. Stacking the composites was found effective for increasing the effective area of the Terfenol-D.