Recent development of low-loss grain-oriented silicon steel

Grain-oriented silicon steel has evolved through the improvement of {1 1 0} <0 0 1> alignment, development of thinner-gauge material and establishment of magnetic domain refining techniques. Core loss of the material has been drastically reduced in the past 40 years. For the further improvement of core loss, the relaxation of magnetic defect structures, such as domain walls pinning and surface closure domains, is indispensable. The characteristics of the advanced products, which control the surface condition are described in relation to the magnetic domain structure dynamics during the magnetization process. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.