Dislocation-assisted particle dissolution: A new hypothesis for abnormal growth of Goss grains in grain-oriented electrical steels

The physical mechanisms that lead to the abnormal growth of Goss-oriented grains in grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES) are still not well understood, despite almost a century of research. The present paper reviews the existing hypotheses on the formation of Goss-oriented grains by abnormal grain growth and provides more insights into the underlying mechanism for Goss texture formation by proposing a new hypothesis named “Dislocation-assisted particle dissolution”. Abnormally grown Goss-oriented grains in fully-processed industrial GOES samples are shown to contain a fine network of internal subgrain boundaries with very low angle (0.03° - 0.18°) each consisting of regular arrays of dislocations. These subgrain boundaries form a branched ray-like pattern from the Goss grain center towards its perimeter, i.e. they seem to have evolved with the grain during its growth. Structural and compositional analysis of these dislocations by controlled electron channelling contrast imaging (cECCI) and atom probe tomography (APT) show that these dislocations are enriched with solutes such as Sn, Cu, C, and more importantly, with Al, N and Mn, which all build the composition of the inhibitor particles that assist the abnormal growth of Goss-oriented grains. Additionally, molecular statics (MS) calculations are employed to compare the segregation tendencies of Al atoms on dislocations and on Σ9 boundaries. It is found that Al prefers to segregate to dislocations rather than to the boundaries. The origin and the role of subgrain boundaries are discussed based on the experimental and simulation results. The results indicate that, after the dissolution of inhibitors along the grain boundaries, solutes are absorbed by the subgrain dislocations. As a result, grain boundaries surrounding Goss grains become less decorated by solutes and precipitates and more mobile compared to the boundaries of matrix grains.