Giant magnetostrictive materials have been available in commercial quantities for over ten years, leading to the design of actuators for industrial and research applications. Magnetostrictive actuators are characterised by their high force capability, large displacements (1200ppm), low volume and operating frequencies up to a few kilohertz. The research has been carried out within a European Brite-Euram project named MADAVIC. It has lead to the realisation of several giant magnetostrictive actuators intended for a number of applications, For ail of them, finite element software developed at the laboratory has been used for magnetic modelling. Characterisation of the actuators has allowed the effects of actuator design trade-offs to be explo...