Abstract: In order to study the effect of rare earth yttrium (Y) on the magnetic properties of cold rolled high silicon steel sheets,  6.5 %  Si high silicon steel sheets with three different Y contents (without rare earth, containing  0.012 %Y  and  0.030 %  Y) were taken as research objects, and hot rolling, warm rolling, cold rolling and annealing processes were adopted to prepare  0.2  mm thick high silicon steel sheets. The effects of rare earth Y on the structure, texture and magnetic properties of the high silicon steel sheets were analyzed by means of metallographic microscope (OM, optical microscope), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD). The results showed that the average grain sizes of annealed sheets gradually decreased with the increase of Y content, which were 194 μm, 125 μm and 84 μm, respectively. And as the increase of Y content, the {100} texture was continuously weakened, and the overall intensity of η (〈100〉//RD) texture increased first and then decreased, while the intensity of harmful γ (〈111〉//ND) texture decreased first and then increased. When the mass fraction of Y content was  0.012 % , although the core losses at the frequencies of 50~ 1 000  Hz were slightly higher than that of the high silicon steel without Y, the magnetic induction of B50 was the highest ( 1.647 T ) due to the enhancing η texture and the weakening γ texture. 

Key words: high silicon steel, rare earth, yttrium, texture, magnetic property