A constitutive model for magnetostrictive composite materials (MCMs) that describes the relations among stress, strain, magnetic field, and magnetization Liu and Zheng (2005 Acta Mech. Sin. 21 278-85) is implemented for multiphysics simulation for analysis of non-periodic or non-uniform microstructure effects. The multiphysics models that capture designed and actual microstructural details are used for predicting the responses of magnetostrictive composite materials under various mechanical and magnetic loading conditions. The approach overcomes the limitation with strain gages in the investigation of magnetostrictive strain due to stress localization around magnetostrictive phases. Three-dimensional digital image correlation (3D-DIC) is used to measure the displacements and strain in the composites under fluctuating magnetic fields. The specimens are prepared using epoxy and particulate magnetostrictive materials with the particles in the range of approximately 20 to 300 microns range. We examine the displacement and strain fields obtained and compare the results to those obtained from fiber Bragg grating (FBG) measurements. The coupling coefficients obtained from this method were in agreement with those measured using other techniques. The validated model allows us to predict the effect of curing, preload, microstructure alignment and particle shape on the magnetostrictive strains.