I have been doing research on material used in solenoid cores. Two important factors seem to be the saturation point and hysteresis. Silicon steel seems to be the norm in transformers because of its superior properties with regards to these two factors.
However, I haven't come across silicon steel as material you'd want to make a solenoid core out of. Other material such as pure iron, ferrite and special nickel alloys have been proposed, but silicon steel is rarely mentioned in this context.
Is there a drawback from using silicon steel in solenoid cores? Or is it just not common?
Yes, high carbon silicon steel could be used for solenoids core material as there would be no residual flux remaining for quick reversal of field during operations. Though needed magnetising current could be more than special nickel alloys…..
Yes silicon steel is used although research is done in other materials and other products are available.
https://www.ei-lamination.com/why-does-the-transformer-use-silicon-steel-sheet-as-the-iron-core/
https://www.ei-lamination.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/centersky-catalogue.pdf
Silicon steel in thin sheets has an advantage of smaller eddy current losses, and smaller resistance heating, and smaller solenoid for a power rating.
Disadvantage is brittleness and a bit of power loss in AC circuits due to permanent magnetism lost slowly.
One alternative is thin sheets of non magnetic stainless steel where efficiency might be higher, but the device is physically larger.
Sometimes softer steels are preferred for rapid loss of magnetism, with intermediate size and efficiency.
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