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Enhanced Crystalline Alignment of TERFENOL-D

Award Information
Agency: Department of Defense
Branch: Navy
Contract: N00014-02-C-0436
Agency Tracking Number: N011-0895
Amount: $437,688.00
Phase: Phase II
Program: SBIR
Solicitation Topic Code: N/A
Solicitation Number: N/A
Timeline
Solicitation Year: N/A
Award Year: 2002
Award Start Date (Proposal Award Date): N/A
Award End Date (Contract End Date): N/A
Small Business Information
2500 N. Loop Drive
Ames, IA 50010
United States
DUNS: 798683355
HUBZone Owned: No
Woman Owned: No
Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: No
Principal Investigator
 Jonathan Snodgrass
 VP and Chief Scientist
 (515) 296-8030
 jon.snodgrass@etrema-usa.com
Business Contact
 Billy Flowers
Title: President
Phone: (515) 296-8030
Email: brf@etrema-usa.com
Research Institution
N/A
Abstract

"Giant magnetostrictive materials, specifically the alloys of TERFENOL-D possess a high energy density that enables compact, high power, broad-band sources and similar, high authority actuators for use in several different military and commercialapplications. Current manufacturing techniques, namely the ETREMA Crystal Growth (ECG) process, yield polycrystalline materials with a preferential crystal orientation of <112> along the rod axis, but little to no long range order amongst the individualdendrites. While this structure provides for large strains as compared to alternate materials, increases of 20-30% in the strain output of TERFENOL-D can be realized if the rod was fully aligned, not only along the <112>, but also with each of thecrystalline dendrites aligned parallel to one another. Phase I successfully showed that improvements to the microstructure and final magnetostrictive performance could be achieved by altering the thermal environment during solidification. The proposedPhase II effort is a series of experiments to define the specific process variables identified in Phase I. Once proven effective, the Phase II Option will perform the commercialization of this technology improvement by developing the necessarywork-instructions that will allow the new process to be readily inserted into the day-to-day manufacturing of TERFENOL-D."

* Information listed above is at the time of submission. *

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