Effect of Sn Addition on Secondary Recrystallization of Thin Grain-Oriented Electrical Steel Sheet

A study was made on the effect of Sn addition on the secondary recrystallization of the thin grain-oriented electrical steel sheet. The electrical steel used in this study contains MnS and AIN as inhibitors. The hot bands with a thickness of 2.5 mm were processed by the single-stage cold rolling process. The following results were obtained. (1) There is a tendency that the decrease of the thickness of the product leads to the difficulty of secondary recrystallization. This is considered to be attributed to the decrease of the amount of Goss nuclei in the primarily recrystallized texture with increasing reduction in cold rolling. (2) Sn addition makes the secondary recrystallization of the thin product easier and consequently enables to fabricate the thin product with excellent magnetic properties, especially with low core loss. This is considered to be attributed to the following three phenomena by Sn addition. (a) The decrease of the average grain size of the primarily recrystallized structure. (b) The increase of the amount of Goss nuclei and the increase of the product of the intensity of Goss orientation and that of Σ9 coincident orientation with Goss orientation in the primarily recrystallized texture. (c) The increase of the effect of inhibition.