Electrically Induced Cube ({001} < 100 >) Texture in Non-oriented Electrical Steel

It is well known that pulsed electric current can significantly accelerate the recrystallization process of cold deformed metals. However, the formation of recrystallized texture is closely related to the nucleation and growth of grains. Here, we apply the pulsed electric current to control the recrystallization grain to induce the cube texture in non-oriented silicon steel. We calculated that the recrystallization activation energy of the pulsed sample (181 kJ/mol) is lower than that of the annealed sample (214 kJ/mol), which separates the kinetic mechanism of recrystallization under current from simple Joule heating. In analyzing the formation of cube texture component with respect to the theories of oriented growth and oriented nucleation, compared with the α-fiber, current can accelerate the nucleation of cube grains in the γ-fiber due to the higher GND in the γ-fiber, in addition, the percentage of cube grain boundaries satisfying the criteria of 20 to 40 deg disorientation increased after the current was applied. It has been reported that the grain boundaries with disorientations of 20 to 40 deg has a high boundary mobility, which allows the cube grains to grow faster. The faster recovery in γ-fiber and growth rate of crystal nucleus in pulsed samples aided cube grains in consuming the deformed matrix more so than changing nucleation position. As a consequence, the current can increase the probability of cube grains recrystallized from the γ-fiber greatly and accelerate the cube grain boundary mobility, which is a more significant factor in obtaining a strong cubic texture.