Texture and magnetic properties improvement of a 3% Si non-oriented electrical steel by Sb addition.

Abstract

The influence of small antimony addition and thermomechanical processing on the magnetic properties of a 3% Si steel was investigated. The samples were processed in the laboratory with 930 1C hot rolling finishing temperature, three different hot band thicknesses, hot band annealing at 1030 1C, cold rolling with three different reductions to 0.35 mm thickness and final annealing at 1030 1C. The results have shown that the best combination of core loss and magnetic induction can be obtained by Sb content of 0.045% and 76% cold rolling reduction, and that Eta/Gamma ratio is higher and grain size larger at this Sb content.