CRGO – Cold Rolled Grain Oriented Steel

Every month we share an industry word or acronym to help translate some of the jargon from the electrical engineering world!

This month’s acronym is: CRGO or Cold Rolled Grain Oriented Steel

CRGO is the acronym for Cold Rolled Grain Oriented Steel. A material that is mainly used in the core of a transformer. When used it gives the transformers and other electrical devices a strong magnetic core.

CRGO steel was first introduced to make the core of transformers in the 1940s. Almost straight away it was used to replace the previous hot-rolled steels by the 1950s. The production of Cold Rolled Grain Oriented Steel increased and by 1995 it was widely accepted globally and fast became the norm.

The transformer core is constructed by combining thin CRGO sheets (also known as laminations). These laminations can be either wrapped around the coil or stacked. CRGO steel has high electrical resistivity and high magnetic properties in the rolling direction. It reduces core losses in transformers and increases corrosion resistance.

The core makes up the bulk of the transformer so the material used must be integral to the overall performance of the transformer. The core makes up 70% of the total cost of the transformer and 30% of the transformer’s weight.

All our standard transformers are made using CRGO, you can view our standard range here.

View last month’s word-of-the-month Transformer Losses here.