Stainless Steel Topics

• local weather conditions
• food processing plants
• stainless steels
• corrosion resistance
• antibacterial properties
• iron oxides
• commercial kitchens
• 254smo
• passive film
• storage tanks
• passivation layer
• major appliances
• phosphorus content
• chromium oxide
• watch straps
• metallurgists
• recycled material
• ironwork
• construction material
• crevice

Related Images

Source

del.icio.us Tags

• stainless
• steel
• materials
• metals
• aco_inoxidavel
• metal
• rvs
• perpetum
• metallurgy
• wikipedia
• mobile

Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel

There are different grades and surface finishes of stainless steel to suit the environment to which the material will be subjected in its lifetime. Common uses of stainless steel are cutlery and watch straps.

Stainless steels have sufficient amounts of chromium present so that a passive film of chromium oxide forms which prevents further surface corrosion and blocks corrosion from spreading into the metal's internal structure.

Unlike stainless steel, however, these artifacts owe their durability not to chromium, but to their high phosphorus content, which, together with favorable local weather conditions, promotes the formation of a solid protective passivation layer of iron oxides and phosphates, rather than the non-protective, cracked rust layer that develops on most ironwork.

Metallurgists of the 19th century, however, were unable to produce the combination of low carbon and high chromium found in most modern stainless steels, and the high-chromium alloys they could produce were too brittle to be practical.

The alloy is milled into coils, sheets, plates, bars, wire, and tubing to be used in cookware, cutlery, hardware, surgical instruments, major appliances, industrial equipment, and as an automotive and aerospace structural alloy and construction material in large buildings. Storage tanks and tankers used to transport orange juice and other food are often made of stainless steel, due to its corrosion resistance and antibacterial properties. This also influences its use in commercial kitchens and food processing plants, as it can be steam cleaned, sterilized, and does not need painting or application of other surface finishes.

In fact, an average stainless steel object is composed of about 60% recycled material of which 40% originates from end-of-life products and 60% comes from manufacturing processes.

Similarly, 18/0 and 18/8 are also available. Superaustenitic stainless steels, such as alloy AL-6XN and 254SMO, exhibit great resistance to chloride pitting and crevice corrosion due to high molybdenum content (> 6%) and nitrogen additions, and the higher nickel content ensures better resistance to stress-corrosion cracking versus the 300 series.

The "L" means that the carbon content of the Stainless Steel is below 0.03%, this will reduce the sensitization effect, precipitation of Chromium Carbides at grain boundaries, due to the high temperature produced by welding operation.

Source: Wikipedia > Stainless Steel