Thermo- and magneto-elastic metallic actuator/sensor materials

The functional characteristics of thermoelastic and ferromagnetic shape memory alloys were improved by using rapid-solidification technique. It was found that thermoelastic shape memory TiNiCu alloys have very narrow hysteresis and sharp shape recovery motion whereas ferromagnetic shape memory FePd, FePt alloy foils have larger magnetostriction than those of randomly oriented bulk-materials of the same origin. A novel material processing technique was also developed to facilitate the applications of rapid-solidified metallic actuator/sensor materials. Furthermore, a small gripper actuator was fabricated to demonstrate an application of the TSMA, TiNi alloy foil with ferromagnetic Fe or FSMA, Fe-Pd alloy foils.