Part VIII – August 1968 – Communications - The {111)(211) Texture in Silicon Steel by Secondary Recrystallization

THERE have been numerous papers in the literature1 on the subjects of secondary and tertiary recrystalli-zation in silicon steels. Secondary re crystallization is believed to occur in silicon steel by either a surface-energy phenomenon such as in the usual development of cube texture or by a second-phase phenomenon such as in the usual production of cube-on-edge texture, (110)[001]. Tertiary recrystallization in silicon steel is thought to be a surface-energy phenomenon in which, for example, grains having a (110) plane parallel to the sheet grow at the expense of other grains in the matrix including those having a (100) plane parallel to the plane of the sheet. In all these instances, the orientations involve either a preferred (100) or (110) plane in the plane of the sheet. Until very recently, there had been no experimental evidence reported of the occurrence of a texture by secondary or tertiary recrystallization that involves a (111) plane in the plane of the sheet, although Kohler reported that grains having the (111) plane parallel to the sheet surface can also grow by a surface energy mechanism. Stickels observed a secondary texture in iron described as "near {554}(225)" about 5 deg from {lll}(211).3 Mee reported that in a vacuum-remelted commercial 3 pct Si steel {lll}(hkl) secondary recrystallization took place in a high vacuum and in pure hydrogen.4 Recently in our Laboratory, large-grained structures such as shown in Fig. 1 having an orientation near (111)[211] or (111)[2ii] have been observed. The arrows point to areas of relatively small matrix grains of the kind that the much larger (111) grains consumed while growing. It is of interest that the matrix grains of samples annealed at 2000°F were essentially the same size as those in samples annealed at 2200°F, a matrix-grain-size stability that is characteristic of secondary recrystallization processes. A torque disc taken from Grain 4 of the sample shown in Fig. 1 revealed a very flat magnetic-torque curve, as expected, with a maximum torque of 7000 dyne-cm per cu cm compared to the typical 180,000 dyne-cm per cu cm observed for conventional (110)[001] textured material. A back-reflection Laue pattern for Grain 4 is shown in Fig. 2 and indicates a near-perfect (111)[211] orientation. The other six numbered grains in the sample of Fig. 1 had a similar orientation. The small circles next to each number were the target areas for the X-ray beam. The starting material was an 0.011-in.-thick oriented silicon steel, (110)[001] texture, containing 3 pct Si. It was lightly pickled, cold-rolled to 0.005 in., and annealed 4 hr at 2200°F within a nickel box (not gas-tight) inside a tube furnace through which dry hydrogen was flowing. The samples were heated to 1500°F in 1 hr and then at 60°F per hr to 2200°F. There were other