Evaluation of Microstructure and Magnetic Properties in Non-oriented Electrical Steel Strained by Tension

The effects of deformation on the microstructure and magnetic properties of non-oriented electrical steels were investigated.Box-annealed electrical steel sheets were deformed by tension at four different strains:3%,8%, 12% and 25%.The internal grain misorientation caused by tensile deformation was measured by electron backscat-tering diffraction (EBSD)with grain orientation spread (GOS)as an indicator of the lattice distortion.The experi-mental results showed that the average GOS value increases with the strain.The microstructure and crystallographic texture of deformed samples did not show a significant change in samples strained below 25%.However,the mag-netic properties were strongly affected:coercivity was directly proportional to the square root of the GOS value and energy losses increased as the strain level was increased.