Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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Author: search.filters.author.Hale, KathleenSubject: search.filters.subject.Galfenol

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    Design and Testing of a Galfenol Tactile Sensor Array
    (2006-12-20) Hale, Kathleen; Flatau, Alison; Aerospace Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The smart material Galfenol, Fe(100-x)Ga(x), where 15<x<28, offers a unique combination of mechanical and magnetostrictive properties that are expected to lead to its use in new sensor and actuator concepts. This thesis seeks to determine if Galfenol can be used to develop a 2-dimensional array of force sensors as part of a 3-D magnetic circuit that, if properly scaled, could mimic the tactile force sensing capabilities needed for use in robotic grippers, prosthetic devices, and robotic surgery. This concept takes advantage of the fact that Galfenol is not brittle and its permeability has high sensitivity to mechanical loads. The hypothesis is that applying stress or force to one or more of the Galfenol rods will produce changes in Galfenol's permeability which will produce changes in the flux density distribution in the magnetic circuit that can be used to determine information about both the load's magnitude and location. The studies performed demonstrated that the decrease in permeability of a loaded rod results in complex changes in magnetic flux. Results from this thesis include recommendations for modifications to better match the rod flux density to the applied load levels and prevent rod top separation.