11 Facts About Electrical steel

Electrical steel is an iron alloy tailored to produce specific magnetic properties: small hysteresis area resulting in low power loss per cycle, low core loss, and high permeability.

Electrical steel made without special processing to control crystal orientation, non-oriented steel, usually has a silicon level of 2 to 3.

Grain-oriented Electrical steel is used in large power and distribution transformers and in certain audio output transformers.

The mechanical properties of amorphous Electrical steel make stamping laminations for electric motors difficult.

Electrical steel is usually coated to increase electrical resistance between laminations, reducing eddy currents, to provide resistance to corrosion or rust, and to act as a lubricant during die cutting.

Magnetic properties of electrical steel are dependent on heat treatment, as increasing the average crystal size decreases the hysteresis loss.

Electrical steel can be delivered in a semi-processed state so that, after punching the final shape, a final heat treatment can be applied to form the normally required 150-micrometer grain size.

Fully processed electrical steel is usually delivered with an insulating coating, full heat treatment, and defined magnetic properties, for applications where punching does not significantly degrade the electrical steel properties.

Magnetic properties of electrical steel are tested using the internationally standard Epstein frame method.

Size of magnetic domains in sheet electrical steel can be reduced by scribing the surface of the sheet with a laser, or mechanically.

Non-grain-oriented electrical steel is mainly used in rotating equipment, for example, electric motors, generators and over frequency and high-frequency converters.