Magnetostrictive properties of cube-textured Si-steel sheets by oxide-separator- induced decarburization

Summary form only given. The advantages of cube texture, {100}<001>, in electrical steel sheets have been recognized for the last half-century. Yet, no commercial electrical steel possesses this texture. Technical difficulties in developing the cube-texture in Si-steel sheets as well as drawbacks in the magnetic properties for the previous cube-textured materials throw obstacles in the development of strips of this kind. It has been reported that the previous cube-textured Si-steel sheet with a coarse grain structure (25 mm in diameter) is largely magnetostrictive (over 10/sup -5/) by Foster et al. (1973). Such a large magnetostriction can cause a significant amount of noise in electrical apparatus and would be a major problem for application to transformer cores. Recently we have found that decarburizing annealing of 3%Si1%Mn-0.05%C steel sheets with a SiO/sub 2/-containing separator leads to not only a remarkably developed cube-texture but also finer grains (0.4 mm in diameter). The purpose of this article is to report the magnetostrictive properties of the fine-grained cube material produced by this method.