Effect of Tensile Deformation on the Grain Size of Annealed Grain Non-Oriented Electrical Steel

Abstract

An experimental study on the effect of tensile deformation on recrystallized grain size has been carried out in order to establishing the optimal deformation needed to accelerate grain growth during final annealing of semi-processed non-oriented Si-Al, low C electrical steel sheets. The material is deformed in tension to strains from 3 to 20% and then air-annealed at temperatures between 700 and 900 °C. The results show that the critical deformation for recrystallization (8%) is independent of annealing temperature. However, the critical recrystallized grain size increases with annealing temperature from 160 to 240 µm. After that, the grain size decreases exponentially with increasing deformation. Abnormal grain growth is observed in samples annealed at 700 °C after strains in the range from 7 to 12%. This type of behavior is also observed in specimens annealed at 800 and 900 °C, however, in this case the pre-strain range is expanded to 3–12%. Normal grain growth is observed in samples pre-deformed to strains larger than 12%. In this case, the final grain size after 2 hour anneal is about 55 µm, also independent of annealing temperature. The possible implications of these results on the magnetic properties of these materials are discussed.