Steel

Carbon steels, with small amounts of alloying elements such as lead, sulfur, and bismuth, are known as engineering steels or free-cutting steels. These grades have been specifically designed to exhibit good machining properties by forming small chips, extending tool life, or a combination of both...

Nitriding steels are medium-carbon steels that have had nitrogen introduced to their surface - usually via anhydrous ammonia gas processing - which reacts with nitride formers within the target material such as molybdenum, vanadium, aluminium, and chromium, to create a hardened case...

Weathering steel is a form of steel with increased resistance to the effects of the elements by means of a protective outer layer, created with a specific composition of copper and nickel, with chromium, silicon, manganese and phosphorous additions. These elements create a compound which allows the steel...

Ferritic stainless steels are alloys that feature high chromium and very low carbon as their primary alloying elements, with no nickel present. They begin life in the austenitic state and are then subsequently heated and cooled to form a body-centred cubic ferritic structure - the BCC grain structure makes ferritic alloys...

Maraging steels are steels with 18% nickel as their primary strengthening element and either cobalt (C-alloys) or titanium (T-alloys) as their secondary alloying elements. The name derives from the substructure of the material and its subsequent treatment used to give this material its remarkable properties...

Case-hardening is a process applied to low-carbon and, generally, machinable steels to improve their wear resistance and, by leaving a relatively soft core, their toughness and impact resistance, also. Carburising - another name for case-hardening - occurs via a gaseous phase at 825-925℃...

Alloy Steels have additional alloying elements such as vanadium, chromium, and nickel, which are in quantities greater than other accepted resident interstitial elements. These may be formulated for greater strength, better toughness, higher hardenability, or any combination of these...

Austenitic stainless steels are iron-carbon alloys that have sufficient inclusions of austenite-stabilizing elements - nickel, manganese, and nitrogen - to create an austenitic substructure. 200 Series stainless steels use manganese and nitrogen to achieve their austenitic structure, whilst 300 Series...

Duplex stainless steels are alloys that have sufficient inclusions of austenite-stabilizing elements - carbon, copper, nickel, manganese, and nitrogen - and ferrite-stabilizing elements - chromium, silicon, molybdenum, tungsten, titanium & niobium to create a series of alloys that combine the excellent corrosion...

Through-hardened - also known as quenched and tempered - steels are characterised by exhibiting high tensile strength, good machinability, good ductility, and good wear-resisting properties. The process to create through-hardened steel is relatively straightforward...

Structural Steels are steel grades that are manufactured to specific shapes and profiles, and to set tensile strengths, for structural use. Indeed the standard designations "S235, S275, and S355" are descriptive of this, where the "S" stands for "structural" and the following numbers signify the nominal yield strength...

Martensitic stainless steels are alloys that feature chromium and carbon as their primary alloying elements. They begin life in the austenitic state and are then subsequently hardened by heat treatment and quenching to form a distorted body-centred cubic martensitic structure. Molybdenum, vanadium...

Precipitation-Hardening Stainless Steels are stainless steel alloys that have been subjected to further heat treatment and quenching. Depending on the intended properties, these are formed as martensitic, semi-austenitic, and austenitic alloys, with the variation occurring via either their original composition, the...