Influence of Hot Rolling Reduction Rate on the Microstructure and Texture of a Strip Cast Fe-2.5 wt.% Si Non-oriented Electrical Steel

A 2.5 wt.% Si electrical steel was prepared based on the ultra-thin strip casting process, and its magnetic properties are closely related to the material's microstructure and texture. Therefore, it is the focus of this paper to control the evolution of grain size and texture by modulating the thermal processing parameters, so as to improve the magnetic properties. In this paper, we mainly study the effect of the hot rolling reduction rate (30-70%) on the microstructure and texture. The results show that with the increase in the reduction rate, the grain is gradually refined. The heavy reduction rate (70%) increased the area fraction of Goss ({110}<001>) and gamma-fiber texture grains and decreased the grain size, which was mainly a result of recrystallization. At lower reduction rates of 30%, the lambda-fiber texture is still inherited and deformation bands dominate within the grains.