Application of the JMAK precipitation law in iron loss modelling to account for magnetic ageing effect

•Modelling of precipitation effect on magnetic coercive field and iron losses.•Using JMAK law to assess the evolution of magnetic properties during ageing.•Integration of JMAK law into an iron loss model to predict magnetic ageing effect. This article deals with the modelling of iron losses due to the magnetic ageing of electrical steels used in energy conversion devices. This phenomenon is the consequence of irreversible mechanisms in the material which can be triggered by the operating temperature of electrical devices. At first, an experimental study is carried out at 180° C in order to assess the effect of isothermal ageing on electromagnetic properties of a magnetic steel sample. The results show that, during the thermal ageing, the hysteresis losses and the coercive field increase. These experimental observations, mainly caused by the formation of precipitates at the material microstructural scale, are then discussed. Considering the link between the effect of magnetic ageing on macroscopic magnetic properties (effect) and the microscopic precipitation (cause), the Johnson – Mehl – Avrami – Kolmogorov (JMAK) law describing the kinetics of precipitation was applied to model the time evolution of magnetic ageing. Once this approach was validated, it is proposed to integrate the JMAK law in the Steinmetz iron loss model.