Experimental Setup for Tensile Characterization of Magnetoelastic Samples for Energy Harvesting

Galfenol is an iron-gallium (Fe-Ga) alloy, rare earth-free, with magnetoelastic properties and interesting mechanical performances, which allows this material to be used in a wide range of sensing and harvesting tasks. Such material shows, among others, a strong dependence of the magnetic response to stress and is suitable for stress sensing purposes. However, while its response to applied compressive stress is well described, in contrast, the behavior in tensile conditions is less addressed and requires a different setup for characterization. To this purpose, in order to have a complete knowledge of the sample characteristics in tensile stress working condition, a laboratory facility has been designed and built up. In the present paper, we show the main features of the experimental test bed, together with the first experimental results obtained on Galfenol sheets.