Abstract: The production of thin gauge grain oriented silicon steel of 0.20 mm or below is rather difficult due to strong surface effects and shows high tendency of degraded or even waste products. Because the techniques for producing such high end products are of high business secrets for enterprises and rather limited reports are found in literatures and, in addition, different composition designs of various enterprises show the suitable processing parameters and the relationship of average grain sizes, textures and inhibitors of their own, each enterprise should seek and find out suitable parameters in its own products. This paper examined in laboratory, based on a successfully produced 0.20 mm thick thin gauge grain oriented silicon steel in the production lines, its repeatability and structural susceptibility and revealed the features of grain size distributions, inhibitors and textures of both matrix grains and secondary recrystallized grains in annealed sheets from primary recrystallization to secondary recrystallization stages. It is hoped to clarify theoretically the significant surface effects brought by thinning sheet thickness and find out key structural and textural parameters and to lay out a better fundamental of comprehensive control of thin gauge grain oriented silicon steel production in our country as a whole. Results show that good repeatability of secondary recrystallization is confirmed. The average primary grain size is about 18 μm and secondary recrystallization temperature is 1 050 ℃ with a finishing temperature of less than 15 ℃. The average grain size before the start of secondary recrystallization increased less than 1SymbolmA@m in comparison with that of primary recrystallization.
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Key words: thin gauge grain oriented silicon steel, texture, grain size, high temperature annealing