Investigation on the Improvement of Magnetic Properties by Hot Deformation Processes for NdFeB Magnets

Abstract

Traditionally, NdFeB magnets with high remanent flux density or high energy product could only be manufactured through altering the material compounds. In recent years, studies indicated that the magnet properties of NdFeB magnets could be improved through plastic deformation. These studies pointed out that the degree of plastic deformation is a key factor to improve magnetic properties. However, there are still many other process parameters that could affect the magnetic properties either positively or negatively. In this paper, process parameters such as strain, strain rate, and temperature are studied to illustrate their influences on the magnetic properties of NdFeB magnets. The magnetic property could be greatly improved when the preferred orientation appears on the microstructure of deformed NdFeB magnets. One of the experimental results showed that the energy product value had been increased by 76.7% when the effective strain value had reached 0.65. Experimental results also showed that strain rate is a dominating factor with regard to the flow stress of material. Through a proper combination of these parameters, one can obtain NdFeB magnets with their magnetic properties greatly improved.