Effect of skin pass rolling reduction rate on the texture evolution of a nonoriented electrical steel after inclined cold rolling

In order to promote the magnetically favourable < 001 > //ND texture (theta-fibre) and minimize the unfavourable < 111 > //ND fibre (gamma-fibre) in non-oriented electrical steel, an unconventional cold rolling scheme was employed in this study, in which the cold rolling was carried out at an angle ( i. e. 30 degrees, 45 degrees, 60 degrees, and 90 degrees) to the hot rolling direction (HRD). After annealing, two steel sheets (i. e. those after cold rolling at 60 degrees and 45 degrees to the HRD) were found to have considerably different textures from other sheets, i. e. showing the strongest and the weakest. theta-fibre textures, respectively. These two sheets were then subjected to skin pass rolling to various reduction rates from 5-20% to investigate the effect of rolling reduction on the evolution of texture. It was found that during skin pass rolling, the cube texture ({001} < 100 >) was gradually weakened and the rotated cube orientation ({001} < 110 >) was strengthened. With the increase of the reduction rate, the {112} < 110 > orientation on the alpha-fibre became a major component. Upon final annealing, the cube texture was slightly restored, but the volume fraction was considerably lower than that before skin pass rolling.