Effect of texture on the Snoek relaxation in a commercial rolled steel

This paper reports that determination of the concentration of foreign interstitial atoms dissolved in ferrite strongly depends on texture in commercial rolled carbon-manganese steel. It was found that the Snoek peak observed in samples cut at the angle of 45 to the rolling direction (RD) is higher by around 45% than for perpendicularly or transversely cut specimens. Strong anisotropy of the Snoek relaxation is explained with use of the three-dimensional orientation distribution function (ODF). The existence of direct relationship between the height of the Snoek relaxation and the texture components was proved and supported further by mechanical loss measurements in ultra-high purity polycrystalline α-Iron samples having the same texture but different grain sizes. In contrast to other results reported in the literature the effect of grain size on the Snoek peak is negligible in comparison to the strong influence of the texture. The results reported in this paper have important implications for steel industry and have already been put into practice for the last seven years. (orig.)