Novel magnetic microwires-embedded composites for structural health monitoring applications

We report the results of a systematic study of the magnetic, mechanical, magnetoimpedance and field tunable properties of glass-coated amorphous Co68.7Fe4Ni1B13Si11Mo2.3 microwires and composites containing these microwires. The magnetic microwires possess good magnetic and mechanical properties. The magnetoimpedance ratio in the gigahertz range varies sensitively with applied fields below the anisotropy field but becomes unchanged for higher applied fields. The good mechanical properties are retained in the magnetic microwires-embedded composites. The strong field dependences of the effective permittivity and transmission parameters in the gigahertz range indicate that the present composites are very promising candidate materials for structural health monitoring and self-sensing applications.