An EBSD investigation on the columnar grain growth in non-oriented electrical steels assisted by strain induced boundary migration

•Columnar grain growth in “hot-rolled GNO electrical steels” investigated by grain average misorientation and electron backscattering diffraction.•Columnar growth is driven by the strain induced boundary migration mechanism due to a strain gradient along the steel thickness.•Growing of surface ferrite grains leads to the formation of a continuous layer with lower strain inverting the strain gradient.•Strain gradient along the steel thickness is reduced for high deformation levels.•Higher plastic deformations lead to primary recrystallization and equiaxial grains due to a more homogeneous deformation along steel thickness.