Effects of rolling temperature on microstructure, texture, formability and magnetic properties in strip casting Fe-6.5 wt% Si non-oriented electrical steel

• Fe−6.5 wt% Si sheet was fabricated by using a new compact processing route.
• Evolution of microstructure and texture along the route was characterized.
• Effect of rolling temperature on microstructure and properties was studied.
• Role of shear bands in microstructural and textural evolution was explored.

Fe-6.5 wt% Si non-oriented electrical steel sheets with a thickness of 0.50 mm were produced by using a new processing route: strip casting followed by hot rolling, intermediate temperature (150–850 °C) rolling and final annealing. The present study focused on exploring the effects of rolling temperature varying from 150 to 850 °C on the microstructure and texture evolution, the formability and final magnetic properties. The microstructure and texture evolution at the various processing steps were investigated in detail by using OM, XRD, EBSD and TEM. It was found that the formability during rolling, the microstructure and texture before and after annealing and final magnetic properties highly depended on rolling temperature. The formability during rolling was gradually improved with increasing rolling temperature due to the slipping of dislocation. In particular, the rolling temperature dominated the formation of in-grain shear bands in the rolled microstructure, which played an important role in the development of final recrystallization microstructure and texture. In the case of lower temperature (150–450 °C) rolling, an inhomogeneous microstructure with a large amount of in-grain shear bands was formed in the rolled sheets, which finally resulted in a fine and inhomogeneous annealing microstructure dominated by mild λ-fiber texture composed of cube and {001}〈210〉 components and α*-fiber texture concentrated on {115}〈5–10 1〉 component. By contrast, in the case of higher temperature (650–850 °C) rolling, a relatively homogeneous microstructure without in-grain shear bands was formed instead in the rolled sheets, which finally led to a coarse and relatively homogeneous annealing microstructure characterized by strong α-fiber and γ-fiber texture. Accordingly, on the whole, both the magnetic induction (B8 and B50) and iron loss (P15/50 and P10/400) decreased with raising rolling temperature.