Approach to saturation in textured soft magnetic materials

A model has been developed for calculating the anisotropic magnetic propert ies of soft magnetic materials with the objective of accounting for variati ons in permeability in textured materials. The model in its current form ta kes account of the rotation of the magnetization direction in each domain o f a textured polycrystal and, thus, is applicable to large applied fields. The magnetization direction is determined by minimizing the sum of the magn etocrystalline anisotropy energy and the energy of interaction between the applied field and local magnetization. Examples are given of the applicatio n to idealized textures, such as fiber textures, in which all grains share a common axis parallel to the sheet normal (ND). The cube fiber (< 100 > \ \ ND) has the highest permeability at any applied field, followed by a rand omly oriented polycrystal, with the gamma fiber (< 111 > \ \ ND) having the lowest permeability. Two further examples are given of textured steel shee ts, often referred to as "nonoriented electrical steels," intended for use as laminations in rotating electrical machinery. In one case, the two sampl es show that a random texture is preferable to one in which the rolling tex ture is retained. The second example demonstrates the importance of a parti cular texture component, the Goss or < 001 > {110}, for producing an anisot ropic permeability.