Effect of deformation route and intermediate annealing on magnetic anisotropy and magnetic properties of a 1 wt% Si non-oriented electrical steel

•Texture parameter (TP) is defined as “theta fiber/gamma fiber” ratio.•Magnetic anisotropy is improved by increasing the texture parameter.•A novel process for produce non-oriented electrical steels with high TP is proposed.•This process is cross rolling accompanied by an intermediate annealing.•Cross roll stimulates theta fiber and intermediate annealing diminishes gamma fiber.

In the present work the influence of intermediate annealing and the strain path during a two-stage cold rolling on the microstructure and texture of a 1 wt% Si non-oriented electrical steel was investigated. Different processing conditions were tasted to develop favorable texture and better understand the relation between texture and important magnetic properties. The texture parameter (TP) was defined as “theta fiber/gamma fiber” ratio. The results showed that the samples with the highest TP have the lowest magnetic anisotropy. Also average magnetocrystalline energy was calculated and it was demonstrated that the lowest energy can be correlated with the highest “theta fiber/gamma fiber” ratio. Regardless of the condition of intermediate annealing process, the uni-directional rolling produced very similar texture parameter (~2). However, the cross rolled samples have very different texture parameters upon intermediate annealing. The cross rolled samples after intermediate annealing at 650 °C have the highest texture parameter (~3). The proposed thermo-mechanical processing allow diminishing gamma fiber which is deleterious for magnetic properties of non-oriented electrical steels.