Kinetics of carbon precipitation and re-solution in low Si-content silicon iron

Abstract

In low Si-charged silicon iron (Fe + 0.1%Si) the kinetics of carbon diffusion, precipitation and redissolution have been carefully studied by means of the magnetic after-effect (MAE) within the temperature range 200 K < T a < 1100 K. The activation parameters of respective processes have been determined by means of least squares fitting the experimental data. In the presence of substitutionally alloyed Si, the C-Richter MAE gives rise to two Debye-type relaxation peaks - resulting from elementary steps of carbon diffusion combined with reorientation in the (i) unperturbed and (ii) Si-modified Fe matrix - situated near 265 K and 320 K, with activation enthalpies, Q i, of 0.84 eV and 1.08 eV. Two-stage carbon precipitation, obeying first order kinetics, occurs, intensively, near 390 K with the elementary C diffusion enthalpy of 0.84 eV and, rather weakly, near 540 K with an enthalpy of 1.18 eV. The resulting precipitates are discussed in terms of partly intra-grain deposited iron carbide phases (Fe 3C) and, mainly, grain-boundary determined C trapping. Decomposition of these precipitates occurring, again, in two stages - situated near 740 K and 950 K, with activation enthalpies of 1.72 and 2.02 eV - leads to a restitution of the state of maximum interstitially dissolved C in the matrix. Of practical importance for silicon steel fabrication is the observation that, after complete C precipitation (T a ≃ 580 K), the material can be kept in a state of minimum dissolved carbon content - and hence of minimum ac-losses - by not allowing it to warm up above T a ≤ 650 K. © 2005 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA.