Effects by the microstructure after hot and cold rolling on the texture and grain size after final annealing of ferritic non-oriented FeSi electrical steel

The magnetic properties of fully processed non-oriented FeSi electrical steel are characterized by their magnetization behavior and specific magnetic losses. The magnetic properties are determined by the texture and microstructure. Less gamma fiber intensity and a high intensity of preferable texture components, especially cube fiber texture, are desirable to obtain an excellent magnetizing behavior. Furthermore, large grain sizes are necessary to reach low values of the specific magnetic losses. The fabrication route of the fully processed non-oriented electrical steels comprises a heavy cold rolling of the hot rolled material before final annealing. To fulfill the requirements on large grain size for low loss materials, grain growth, which appears after complete recrystallization, plays an important role. In this paper we will analyze the influence of different microstructures of the hot strip and the resulting microstructure after cold rolling on the appearance of recrystallization and grain growth after final annealing. The evolution of texture reflects the present ongoing softening processes: recovery, recrystallization and finally grain growth at the given annealing conditions. It will be shown that the image of texture at recrystallization is remarkable different from the texture at grain growth. Substantially grain growth is obtained at lower annealing temperatures for an optimum microstructure of the hot rolled material.