A nonlinear constitutive model for magnetostrictive materials

A general nonlinear constitutive model is proposed for magnetostrictive materials, based on the important physical fact that a nonlinear part of the elastic strain produced by a pre-stress is related to the magnetic domain rotation or movement and is responsible for the change of the maximum magnetostrictive strain with the pre-stress. To avoid the complicity of determining the tensor function describing the nonlinear elastic strain part, this paper proposes a simplified model by means of linearizing the nonlinear function. For the convenience of engineering applications, the expressions of the 3-D (bulk), 2-D (film) and 1-D (rod) models are, respectively, given for an isotropic material and their applicable ranges are also discussed. By comparison with the experimental data of a Terfenol-D rod, it is found that the proposed model can accurately predict the magnetostrictive strain curves in low, moderate and high magnetic field regions for various compressive pre-stress levels. The numerical simulation further illustrates that, for either magnetostrictive rods or thin films, the proposed model can effectively describe the effects of the pre-stress or residual stress on the magnetization and magnetostrictive strain curves, while none of the known models can capture all of them. Therefore, the proposed model enjoys higher precision and wider applicability than the previous models, especially in the region of the high field.