Objective
Objectives and content:
Electrical steels are used in sheet form in electrical transformers and motor cores. Both transformers and motors unproductively dissipate, or loose, a portion of the applied electrical energy. These losses could be significantly reduced by the introduction of new low loss materials, containing a higher silicon content than do conventional alloys. However, increasing silicon content introduces processing difficulties and increases costs. Hence their widespread introduction has been inhibited. The proposed programme is aimed at exploring the feasibility of reducing the cost of higher silicon content steels and assessing the consequential benefits of doing so. Novel processing routes will be investigated and new designs of motors developed to capitalise on the reduced electrical losses. These will be achieved through research into the warm working and electroplastic processing of warm worked high silicon steels containing up to 6.5% silicon. Motor laminations will be manufactured from these steels and built into novel motor designs. This will enable the impact of the new steels in motor manufacture and performance to be assessed.
The major research tasks are:
- Introduce novel modifications (electroplasticity) to the conventional fabrication route for high silicon steels containing up to 6.5% silicon;
- Develop a warm working process based on Transverse Flux Induction Heating technology for high silicon steels containing up to 6.5% silicon;
- To realise the final thickness of 0.5 mm for high silicon steels through a combination of hot and warm rolling;
- To manufacture and characterise novel motors designed to capitalise on the enhanced properties of the higher silicon steels. The success of this project will also lead to considerable reduction in energy expended in transformers and motor cores, thus reducing the emission of carbon dioxide and reducing the requirement for new power station construction. BE97-4577