Silicon steel is a steel with added silicon, increasing its electrical resistance and magnetic field penetration while reducing hysteresis loss. It’s used in electrical applications and can have up to 6.5% silicon. Heat treatment controls grain size and orientation, and laminations are stacked to create the core of electromagnetic devices.
Silicon steel, often called electrical steel, is a steel with the addition of silicon. Adding silicon to steel increases its electrical resistance, improves the ability of magnetic fields to penetrate it, and reduces the steel’s hysteresis loss. This type of steel is used in many electrical applications where electromagnetic fields are important, such as in transformers, magnetic coils and electric motors.
While the silicon in silicon steel can reduce the corrosion rate of the iron in it, the main purpose of adding silicon is to improve the hysteresis loss of the steel. Hysteresis is the delay between when a magnetic field is first generated or applied to the steel and when the field is fully developed. Adding silicon to steel makes the steel more efficient and faster in terms of building and maintaining magnetic fields. Therefore, silicon steel improves the efficiency and effectiveness of any device that uses steel as the magnetic core material.
The percentage of silicon added to silicon steel varies with intended use up to 6.5 percent. For some items, such as high-efficiency motors and transformers, silicon makes up about 3% of the steel composition. In other items that require lower efficiency, such as some types of motor applications, the amount of silicon can be as low as 2%. While expensive compared to ordinary carbon steel, silicon steel can be manufactured with any percentage of silicon needed for a specific application.
This product is produced in strips or rolls, cut into the required shapes and then heat treated to control the grain size of the steel. Through grain size control, the hysteresis loss of steel can be precisely controlled. The direction of the grain in the steel can also affect its efficiency. The grain can be oriented in one direction through rolling to improve its density or the grain can be non-oriented and run in all directions, making silicon steel less expensive.
Once the heat treatment process is complete, the silicon steel is often coated or painted, to further retard corrosion, and then stacked to the required thicknesses. These shims are called laminations and may or may not be physically attached or glued to each other. These stacked laminations serve as the core of nearly every electromagnetic device in modern use, from power adapters for home electronics to substation transformers that supply electricity to homes and businesses.
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