New giant magnetostrictive force sensors

Force sensors, based on the giant inverse magnetostrictive effect, have a series of outstanding properties, such as large overload capacity, which make them have more and more applications to the field of automatic control system of heavy industry, chemical industry. This paper designs new giant magnetostrictive force sensors using the rare-earth iron giant magnetostrictive materials. With the designed giant magnetostrictive force sensor, the relations between magnetic flux density in the gap and applied static stress on the sensor, the inductive voltage in the coil and time (with the dynamic stress), are calculated by finite element analysis software. The related confirmatory experiments have been conducted. The experimental results indicate that the giant magnetostrictive force sensor is fit for static and dynamic force measurement. In order to enlarge the measurement range, the designed force sensor as the basic cell is combined. This paper gives two kinds of combinations, which have the feature of adjustable range.