A Hybrid Magnetic Sensor System for the Measurement of Dynamic Forces

A novel hybrid force sensor system has been produced and successfully shown to be able to measure dynamic kN-level forces. It uses an innovative frequency modulation (FM) based system using an amorphous wire sensor wound around a magnetically biased Terfenol-D rod to detect dynamic, stress-induced changes in magnetisation. The hybrid sensor is able to successfully detect low-frequency sinusoidal forces up to 2kN. It is considered that the sensor system will be able to detect compressive cyclic stresses, applied forced waveforms and forces.