New production method of 100-μm-thick grain-oriented 3% silicon steel sheets

We report a new method of preparing highly oriented 3% silicon steel sheets with a thickness of 100 μm, which enables us to realize the mass production with existing manufacturing facility. In our new method, a hot-rolled silicon steel is thinned to 100 μm by a three-step rolling process with intermediate annealings and the (110)[001] is created by the final annealing taking advantage of surface energy. The obtained 100-μm-thick sheets had the Goss texture and superior soft magnetic properties (the magnetic induction at 800 A/m, B₈≒1.9 T, the coercive force <4 A/m). In addition, the iron loss W 15/50 at 1.5 T, 50 Hz under the applied tensile strength of 2 kg/mm₂ was 0.53 W/kg. This value is less than that of the conventional (300 μm) grain-oriented silicon steels by about 37%.