Institute of Metals Division - A Study on the Texture Formation in Rolled and Annealed Crystals of Silicon Iron

Three single crystal strips of a 3 pct Si-Fe alloy with approximately (110) [001], (210) [001], and (100) [001] orientations were rolled at room temperature to 30, 50, and 70 pct reductions in thickness. Their deformation and annealing textures were studied. In most cases, the change in texture upon recrystallization and subsequent growth can be described as rotations around the <I10 > axes. A < WO > rotational relationship was also observed. The temperature dependence of recrystallization textures was discussed. WhILE considerable data have been published on the rolling and annealing textures in silicon-iron crystals, very little study has been made on the texture formation at various stages of rolling deformation, and during the process of recrystallization. Dunn&apos; in some of his early works had studied the orientation of recrystallized grains in crystals cut out from lightly rolled (10 to 20 pct reduction) large grained sheets. He found that in most cases a third-order twin relationship exists between the crystal and the recrystallized grains. This orientation relationship actually corresponds to rotations around the <110> axes. The more recent studies of Dunn &apos; and of Dunn and Koh &apos;5 on the rolling and annealing textures in various silicon-iron crystals were concerned mostly with a cold-rolling reduction of 70 pct and annealing at 980OC for recrystallization. Reductions of similar magnitude were also employed by Walter and Hibbard in rolling columnar crystal aggregates of a silicon-iron ingot. A systematic study of the effect of rolling reduction on the deforma- tion and annealing textures is still lacking. Regarding the effect of annealing temperature on the texture formation, Dunn3 has observed a change in therecrys-tallization texture by annealing a 70 pct rolled (1 10) [001] crystal first at a low temperature then atahigh temperature. But the details of texture formation during the annealing treatments were not thoroughly investigated. The present investigation was undertaken to study the texture developments at various stages of rolling deformation and of the recrystallization process, so that a better understanding on the texture formation in silicon-iron crystals may be obtained. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURE The three single crystals used in the present investigation were selected from the group of single crystal strips previously prepared7 from a high grade commercial Si-Fe alloy with 3 pct Si. The thickness of these single crystal strips was 0.040 in. The orientations of the three crystals as determined by the X-ray back-reflection Laue technique are shown in Table I. Each of the three crystals was rolled at room temperature along the strip direction to 30, 50, and 70