Effect of Annealing Time on Texture Evolution of Fe–3.4 wt% Si Nonoriented Electrical Steel

Abstract

In this study, the effect of annealing time on the texture evolution in Fe‐3.4 wt.% Si non‐oriented electrical steel was investigated. Strip samples were cast using a vacuum sampling method, which simulated the solidification conditions of an industrial twin roll thin strip casting (TRSC) process. As‐cast samples with different carbon and sulfur (C&S) levels were hot rolled (HR) with varying levels of hot deformation, cold rolled (CR) to 0.35 mm thickness and then final annealed at 1050 ºC for different holding times (1, 6, 24 hrs). To this Fe‐3.4 wt.% Si non‐oriented electrical steel, the observed texture evolution can be divided into different stages as annealing time is increased from 1 to 24 hrs. With increasing annealing time, the fraction of Goss texture decreased initially, then increased again through the consumption of grains with other textures. With additional time, a decrease of pinning force due to precipitate coarsening results in normal grain growth, resulting in an increase of grain size. In this step, Cube grains can form from rotated Goss grains. A model for core loss is presented and used to explain the core loss results.This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.