What is Stainless Steel?
In the simplest form the term stainless steel refers to a generic name for steels which have been specially developed in a wide range of stainless steel grades in order to resist corrosion or oxidation in many applications and industries such as the chemical, processing and oil and gas industries.
Stainless steels are in fact an iron alloy which has a minimum of around 10.5% chromium otherwise it cannot be classed as stainless steel. It is the favoured material by many because it can be alloyed against other metals in order to enhance many of its already existing qualities such as its sheer strength, formability and cryogenic toughness.
There are four main metals which stainless steel is often alloyed with although there are a number of others these are:
- Nickel
- Molybdenum
- Titanium
- Copper
It isn’t just metal that stainless steel is combined with though, in some cases some non-metal additions are added and once again although there are many combinations there are two main ones:
- Carbon
- Nitrogen
When you think of stainless steel you think of one quality, its ability to be able to resist corrosion. Stainless steel is placed in a number of specialised applications or environments and it is important that the correct grade is selected so that it will resist corrosion. It isn’t just the environmental factors and application of the stainless steel which needs to be considered.
Additional mechanical or physical properties need to be considered also otherwise the overall service performance requirements wouldn’t be met and this could leave devastating results.
Since the introduction of stainless steel it has been fabricated into a number of stainless steel products including, stainless steel wire, stainless steel banding, stainless steel strip coil and other formations.
BS Stainless Ltd is the leading independent supplier of stainless steel. Our team are on hand to answer any questions which you may have and to help our customers specify which stainless steel grade would be most suitable for their individual requirements.