Effects of Annealing on Magnetic Properties of Electrical Steel and Performances of SRM After Punching

This paper compares the microstructure and magnetic properties of punched electrical steel before and after annealing. The effects of this manufacturing process on performance of a switched reluctance motor (SRM) are also investigated. The punching of laminations distorts the grains near the cut edges, and therefore an anneal process is used to recover the damage caused by punching. In this paper, samples are annealed at 750 °C for an hour under a N2 atmosphere. The damaged regions and corresponding recovery after annealing are observed under microscope as the measured core losses are improved up to 37%. The SRM performance is measured and it is found that the torque density can be enhanced when using the annealed electrical steel.