The effects of antimony and hot rolling on the microstructure, texture, and magnetic properties of a non-oriented electrical steel

The present work investigates the effects of antimony and hot rolling on the microstructure, texture, and magnetic properties of a 1.2 wt%Si electrical steel. For this purpose, three samples with 0.002, 0.012, and 0.026 wt% antimony were produced by melting in an induction furnace and casting into ingots, followed by hot rolling with a 75 % reduction. The aim was to better understand the interaction effects of adding antimony and hot rolling on the microstructure, texture, and magnetic properties. Microstructural studies were performed using optical microscopy (OM) and field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM). The macrotexture measurement was performed via X-ray diffraction (XRD), while magnetic properties were measured by a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM). The results showed that increasing the antimony content gradually reduces the grain size, which is due to the effect of antimony on the migration rate of grain boundaries. This behavior was observed in both as-cast and hot-rolled samples. The texture in as-cast samples is random, and θ-fiber is observed after hot rolling. The examination of the texture parameter (TP) showed that the sample with 0.002 wt%Sb has a higher TP compared to other samples. Moreover, the lowest levels of coercivity and remanence are observed in this sample, which is due to the inverse relationship between the grain size and coercivity. The addition of antimony reduces the grain size, thus destroying the magnetic properties under these conditions.