Textures of Non-Oriented Electrical Steel Sheets Produced by Skew Cold Rolling and Annealing

In order to investigate the effect of cold rolling deformation mode and initial texture on the final textures of non-oriented electrical steels, a special rolling technique, i.e., skew rolling, was utilized to cold reduce steels. This not only altered initial textures but also changed the rolling deformation mode from plane-strain compression (2D) to a more complicated 3D mode consisting of thickness reduction, strip elongation, strip width spread and bending. This 3D deformation induced significantly different cold-rolling textures from those observed with conventional rolling, especially for steels containing low (0.88 wt%) and medium (1.83 wt%) amounts of silicon at high skew angles (30° and 45°). The difference in cold-rolling texture was attributed to the change of initial texture and the high shear strain resulting from skew rolling. After annealing, significantly different recrystallization textures also formed, which did not show continuous <110>//RD (rolling direction) and <111>//ND (normal direction) fibers as commonly observed in conventionally rolled and annealed steels. At some skew angles (e.g., 15–30°), the desired <001>//ND texture was largely enhanced, while at other angles (e.g., 45°), this fiber was essentially unchanged. The formation mechanisms of the cold rolling and recrystallization textures were qualitatively discussed.