Investigating the fatigue behavior of grain-oriented Fe-3%Si steel sheets using magnet-optical Kerr microscopy and micromagnetic multiparameter, microstructure and stress analysis

Abstract

Fatigue is considered as a reason for a significant number of mechanical failures of engineering materials. Conventionally, microstructural investigations along with stress-strain hysteresis measurements are performed to understand and characterize the fatigue behavior of metallic materials. Moreover, further physical data like temperature, electrical resistance and, in the case of ferromagnetic materials, magnetic properties can be used for a comprehensive characterization of fatigue process. The present work has employed Magneto-Optical Kerr Effect (MOKE) microscope and Micromagnetic Multiparameter, Microstructure and stress Analysis (3MA) system to illustrate magnetic domain structure and various intrinsic magnetic properties including magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN) of the investigated material. In order to investigate the influence of the mechanical deformation processes on the magnetic parameters, samples were produced out of the grain-oriented electrical steel sheets and were subjected to a tensile test as well as a cyclic strain increase load test with R = 0 at ambient temperature.