Hot Deformation Behavior of Free-Al 2.43 wt.% Si Electrical Steel Strip Produced by Twin-Roll Strip Casting and Its Effect on Microstructure and Texture

Abstract

Twin-roll strip casting (TRSC) technology has unique advantages in the production of non-oriented electrical steel. However, the hot deformation behavior of high-grade electrical steel produced by TRSC has hardly been reported. This work systematically studied the hot deformation behavior of free-Al 2.43 wt.% Si electrical steel strip produced by twin-roll strip casting. During the simulated hot rolling test, deformation reduction was set as 30%, and the ranges of deformation temperature and strain rate were 750~950 °C and 0.01~5 s−1, respectively. The obtained true stress–strain curves show that the peak true stress decreased with an increase in the deformation temperature and with a decrease in the strain rate. Then, the effect of hot deformation parameters on microstructure and texture was analyzed using optical microstructure observation, X-ray diffraction, and electron backscattered diffraction examination. In addition, based on the obtained true stress–strain curves of the strip cast during hot deformation, the constitutive equation for the studied silicon steel strip was established, from which it can be found that the deformation activation energy of the studied steel strip is 83.367 kJ/mol. Finally, the kinetics model of dynamic recrystallization for predicting the recrystallization volume percent was established and was verified by a hot rolling experiment conducted on a rolling mill.