Useful Applications of Stainless Steel

Stainless steel is one of the most durable steel which comes with an elegant natural finish and is ideal for furniture and art décor. Because of its qualities, it is one of the most cost effective materials for construction applications.

Stainless steel was discovered by Harry Brearley in England in 1913. Brearley discovered it while doing an experiment of increasing the levels of chromium. Based on his experiment, a 12% of chromium makes the steel resistant to corrosion caused by acid. In 1920, there are two stainless steel types that was found to be useful and these are the martenstic stainless steel and the austenitic stainless steel.

The martensitic stainless steels are basically alloys of carbon and chromium that hold a martensitic crystal assembly in the solidified state. They are typically less resilient to oxidization compared to several other stainless steel grades. Martensitic types are also hardened by heat and are ferromagnetic. Generally, its chromium content does not go beyond 18%, while its carbon content can go beyond 1 %. Both carbon and chromium components are customized to guarantee a martensitic construction once hardening took place.

On the other hand, austenitic stainless steels hold an austenitic face-centered cubic or FCC crystal assembly. Austenite is virtually produced through the liberal application of components used for austenitizing including manganese and nickel. Austenitic steels are normally non-magnetic when it is in the annealed state. They can only be solidified through the application of cold treatment. The nickel component of austenitic stainless steels is normally no more than 35% while its chromium content on average ranges from 16 to 26%.

Stainless steel is also known as steel alloy that generally have at least 11.5% of chromium content. This material has certain qualities that do not stain and rust as compared to ordinary metals. When the alloy grade and type are not completely identified, it is known as corrosion resistant steel. These are mostly used in the aviation application. These kinds of steel have enough amount of chromium which prevents them from being corroded. In addition, this kind of steel has its natural smooth surface and does not need any painting. It is proven to last for so many years. Above all, it is 100% recyclable.

Stainless steel has different grades and surface finishing. It has around 150 grades. Fifteen of these grades are widely used. These types are produced into coils, plates, sheets, wires and tubing. Due to the qualities of stainless steel, it made its way as one of the mainly used steel in many commercial applications.

Stainless steel is widely used in cookware, cutlery, and kitchen utensils. These are along with hardware supplies, industrial equipments, structural buildings, automotive, and aerospace industries. Because of strong resistance to corrosion, it is largely employed for production of storage tanks and other food containers of fruit drinks. Likewise, medical equipment production also makes use of stainless steel because it can be steamed and sterilized over and over. It is also a prevalent material applied in a lot of jewelries and watches creation. The Rolex is one best example of watch brand that uses stainless steels for their numerous watch models.

In recent years, some of the renowned buildings and sculptures have exploited stainless steel for most of their parts. Among these famous buildings are the Petronas Twin Towers, Jin Mao Building Gateway Arch, and the upper part of the Chrysler Building. Similarly, countless restaurants use stainless steels in their furniture, panels, and railings. In automobile industry, Ford's 1930 Model A car was the first vehicle that used stainless steel in making the radiator shell. This started the popularity of the steel in the world of automobiles.

Stainless steel also comes with different grades regularly adopted to identify what kind of grade to be used in a particular purpose.

100 Series - austenitic manganese nickel chromium alloys
• Type 101- the austenitic is hardened through cold working chiefly used in furniture and fixtures
• Type 102-austenitic general purpose stainless steel for furniture
• 200 Series-austenitic nickel chromium manganese alloys
• Type 201-austenitic that is hardened through cold working
• Type 202-austenitic general purpose stainless steel
300 Series-austenitic nickel chromium alloys
• Type 301-hardens quickly during mechanical working. Fine weld ability.
• Type 302-higher strength due to additional carbon.
• Type 303-referred to as "A1" in accordance with ISO 3506
• Type 304-most common grade; the classic 18/8 stainless steel. Also referred to as "A2" in accordance with ISO 3506
• Type 304L-contains less carbon than 304 grades.