EffectsofaHighMagneticField onMicrostructureandTexture EvolutioninaCold-rolled Interstitial-Free(IF)SteelSheet duringAnnealing** By Changshu S. He, Yudong D. Zhang, Xiang Zhao, Liang Zuo, Jicheng C. He, Kazuo Watanabe, Tao Zhang, Gen Nishijima, Claude Esling* In the past few decades, the effects of magnetic field on metallurgical phenomena have received great interest in rela- tion with the modification of microstructure and the develop- ment of high-performance magnetic materials. [1±3] However, only limited studies have focused on recrystallization and re- crystallization texture development in magnetic materials during magnetic field annealing. It was found that the appli- cation of a magnetic field could (i) produce some changes in the recrystallization texture in the case of a cold-rolled Fe-Co alloy, [4,5] (ii) introduce the <111> and <112> texture compo- nents with a swaged iron wire, [6] (iii) retard recrystallization and increase the {100} recrystallization texture component in the case of a cold-rolled Armco iron, [7] (iv) increase the fre- quency of low-angle boundaries in an Fe-Co alloy [8] and Fe- 3%Si alloy [9] and enhance the selectivity of the <001> axis alignment in an Fe-3%Si alloy. [9] With the current development of the cryocooling tech- nique, high magnetic fields of over 10 T have become avail- able at a reasonable in-lab cost. In this paper, we present a comparative study on the impact of a high magnetic field on the microstructure and texture evolution in a cold-rolled IF steel sheet during annealing. The material used in this study was a 76 % cold-rolled IF steel sheet of 1 mm thickness, with a chemical composition of (wt.%): 0.0023 C, 0.056 Ti, 0.014 Si, 0.16 Mn, 0.011 P, 0.0064 S, 0.052 Al, 0.0018 N. Specimens were taken from the sheet in a longitudinal direction parallel to the rolling direction. The isothermal annealing treatments were carried out in a furnace installed in a cryocooler-cooled superconducting magnet ca- pable of generating a high magnetic field of 11 T. [10] For com- parison, the specimens were heated to the peak temperatures selected, ranging from 650 to 850C at a heating rate of 50 C/min in an argon-flow atmosphere and cooled in the furnace after 25 min of holding time, respectively with and without applying a 10 T magnetic field. In both cases, the specimens were placed in the center of the magnetic bore with their rolling direction (RD) parallel to the magnetic field direction (MD). The experimental setup is schematically shown in Fig. 1. The X-ray texture measurements were performed for the cold and annealed specimens at their one-quarter thickness by measuring three incomplete {110}, {200} and {211} pole figures up to a maximal polar angle of 70 with the Schulz back-reflection method. [11] The corresponding ODFs were cal- culated with the two-step method [12] and the results were pre- sented in constant j-sections (Roe's notation). The micro- structure of the longitudinal section of the specimens was examined with an optical microscope. For the specimens an- nealed at 700 C, the local orientations on the RD-ND plane close to the specimen center were measured using a SEM- EBSD system. The scan was carried out over a grid size of 192 x 120 with 2 lm spacing. The average indexed fractions of the two specimens was above 90 %. The microhardness tests were carried out for the annealed specimens, where the average microhardness values were taken at 5 measuring points. COMMUNICATIONS ADVANCEDENGINEERINGMATERIALS2003,5,No.8 DOI: 10.1002/adem.200300387 Ó 2003WILEY-VCHVerlagGmbH&Co.KGaA,Weinheim 579 ± [*] Dr. C. S. He, Dr. Y. D. Zhang, Prof. X. Zhao, Prof. L. Zuo, Prof. J. C. He Key Laboratory of EPM (Northeastern University), Ministry of Education, Shenyang 110004, P. R. of China Prof. K. Watanabe, Dr. T. Zhang, Dr. G. Nishijima High Magnetic Field Laboratory for Superconducting Materials, Institute for Material Research, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8577, Japan Prof. C. Esling LETAM, CNRS-UMR 7078, University of Metz, Ile du Saulcy, 57045 Metz, France [**] This study was financially supported by the National High Technology Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2002AA336010), the key project of National Nat- ural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 50234020) and the TRAPOYT of MOE of China. The authors are grateful for the support of AFCRST in the framework of the Franco-Chi- nese Cooperative Research Project (PRA MX00-03). Fig. 1. Experimental arrangement for heat treatment.