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Magnetic properties (easy magnetisation, low hysteresis losses) of grain oriented electrical steels (GOES) depend strongly on the sharpness of the Goss texture ({110}<001>). It is expected that the perfection of the Goss texture in final sheets is significantly affected by structural inheritance during the industrial production process. This paper deals with results of microstructural characterization of GOES sheets, manufactured from hot strips supplied by three steelmakers. The following steps of the manufacturing process were studied: hot rolling, the first cold rolling + decarburization annealing, the second cold rolling and final high temperature annealing. Microstructural characterization of samples was carried out using scanning electron microscopy combined with electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD) and transmission electron microscopy. Investigations on minor phase evolution confirmed re-precipitation of copper-bearing sulphides during decarburizationannealing. Most precipitates after decarburization annealing were identified as nitrides AlN and Si3N4. A high density of defects in the sheets after the second cold rolling accelerated additional precipitation, coarsening and dissolution of minor phases at the beginning of high temperature annealing. Precipitation of ε - Cu was not observed. In the final state all minor phases were dissolved, except for a few TiN particles. EBSD analysis of final sheets revealed that misorientation of individual ferritic grains reached up to 10°. No significant differences were found in the microstructure evolution and magnetic properties of sheets manufactured from hot strips of three suppliers.
Keywords: GOES, precipitation processes, microtexture© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.