Improved Magnetostrictive Composites for Navy Hybrid Sonar Transducers

"The Navy has a need for new transduction materials to develop newsonar projectors that operate over greater frequency bandwidths,with greater Source Levels (SL). One proposed hybrid transducerdesign incorporates laminated Terfenol-D materials for themagnetostrictive drive element. However, the laminating approachlimits the design scope of the transducer device due to eddycurrent losses that reduce the efficiency as the frequencyincreases. During the last decade, research focused ondeveloping magnetostrictive particulate composites to overcomethese and other issues.During the Phase I, Fortis Technologies increased the state ofthe art for magnetostrictive particulate composites by 1)developing a new manufacturing process, 2) increasing strainoutput, and 3) increasing piezomagnetic coefficients. While thePhase I effort has been highly successful, a Phase II effortfocused on manufacturing and testing sonar-compatible CAMPdevices should be initiated to continue the progress leading thisnovel material to be introduced into an advanced sonar system,possibly a hybrid sonar device, which can be used in the US Navyarsenal in the upcoming decade. This effort will include thedevelopment of a facility to fabricate large arrays ofmagnetostrictive particulate composite sonar transducers.BENEFITS: Fortis Technology is continually learning the unique benefits of this novel material. The Phase II research will further develop the manufacturing