Microstructure and Texture Evolution in Non‐oriented Electrical Steels Along Novel Strip Casting Route and Conventional Route

In this article, evolution of microstructure and texture in non-oriented electrical steels along novel strip casting route and conventional route are comparatively investigated in detail. It demonstrates the similar and important role of the microstructure and texture prior to cold rolling to finally obtain desirable recrystallization microstructure and texture in both routes. In both routes, a high intensity of cube-fiber texture and a low intensity of -fiber texture can be acquired in hot strips by optimizing the hot rolling and thermal treatment parameters. Accordingly, after cold rolling and annealing, a lower intensity of -fiber texture together with a higher intensity of cube-fiber texture, which are favorable for high-permeability materials, can be obtained in both routes. The desired large grain size in the finally annealed materials to obtain low magnetic losses may be gained by choosing appropriate annealing conditions after the first stage of recrystallization. The features of microstructure and texture are similar at comparable stages. The main differences in the regarded different processing routes are in the practical efforts. The detailed results and deeply corresponding discussion on how the microstructure and texture develop during cold rolling and annealing in differently processed samples will be given in the future work.