Quantification of magnetic flux density in non-oriented electrical steel sheets by analysis of texture components

In order to quantify the impact of crystallographic texture on the variation of magnetic flux density B(alpha) in non-oriented electrical steel, two sheet samples with identical chemical composition were produced in a way to achieve different textures. A correlation between the values of B(alpha) and an anisotropy parameter A((h) over right arrow) obtained from the sheet textures was established. In turn, this correlation was used to compute in-plane variations of B(alpha) for various single crystal orientations as well as various characteristic polycrystal texture components. Since non-oriented electrical steel is mainly used in applications with changing directions of magnetization the planar magnetic flux density (B) over bar, which averages the in-plane variation of B(alpha), is an important measure of the overall magnetizing ability. A high planar magnetic flux density (B) over bar is achieved by increasing texture components with their {0 0 1} poles close to the sheet normal direction, perpendicular to the sheet plane, while suppressing texture components whose {0 0 1} poles deviate from the normal direction by more than 30 degrees. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.