" Magnetostrictive materials form an important class of magnetic materials keeping in view of their potential applications as sensors and/ or actuators. Amongst several materials in this class, RFe₂ type (R represents rare earths) intermetallics display maximum promise owing to giant magnetostriction exhibited by them. In this thesis, one such mixed rare earth compound (Tb,Dy)Fe₂ has been chosen for investigations. Several aspects such as phase equilibria, evolution of texture and microstructure of directionally solidified alloys have been
studied in this thesis, where existing literature cannot provide a clear insight. Finally, a correlation between texture and microstructure with magnetostriction has been brought out to understand the process-structure-property relationship of such practically important intermetallic compound. Apart from the investigation on the well known magnetostrictive material (Tb,Dy)Fe₂, attempts have been made to understand the role of microstructure, especially the ordered phases on the magnetostriction of an emerging magnetostrictive material Fe-Ga. The description of the experimental work carried out and the analysis of data have been presented in the subsequent chapters of this thesis with a brief review of existing literature at the beginning. "