Texture Adjustment of Hot-Rolled Fe-1.6 wt% Si Non-oriented Electrical Steel Sheet by Annealing Processes

In the present work, the effect of pre-annealing on the recrystallized texture of hot-rolled Fe-1.6 wt% Si non-oriented electrical steel was investigated. Vickers hardness test, optical microscope, and electron backscatter diffraction were used to investigate the changes in the average hardness, microstructure, and texture caused by pre-annealing of hot-rolled strips. It was found that the texture successively changed from a near-random distribution to {116} < 151 > texture and near-{001} < 140 > texture depending on pre-annealing treatments. Also, there was almost no effect on the grain size, and the average grain size of the normalized bands was 125 μm. Besides, the texture and magnetic properties of the final products under different pre-annealing treatments were also detected. It was found that the sample obtain a strong Cube texture by pre-annealing. Meanwhile, the magnetic properties are also got an improvement by pre-annealing. In a word, this method may provide a possibility to obtain an ideal grain size and texture simultaneously.