Microstructure–magnetic property relations in grain-oriented electrical steels: quantitative analysis of the sharpness of the Goss orientation

Abstract

We have investigated microstructure–magnetic property relations in several high-permeability grain-oriented steels by large-area electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) mapping. The evaluation of the Goss sharpness determined from orientation distribution functions provides a more quantitative and detailed texture analysis than conventional pole figure estimates. Accordingly, it results in a more quantitative treatment of texture–magnetic property relations. The analysis of crystal-orientation distribution by a statistical binning method provides further insights into the occurrence of secondary texture components. Specifically, we have found the formation of two weak secondary components rotated about 4°–6° and 8°–10° from the texture center, respectively. These texture components have a strong influence on the magnetic polarization but a small influence on the core loss. We explain this effect in terms of the magneto-crystalline anisotropy energy of a cubic crystal and magnetic domain–microstructure feature interactions.