Types of Steel Materials and Their Uses

Steel is a versatile material that can be used for a variety of reasons. In fact, it is estimated that over 55 percent of a car is made of steel. The kind of alloys used to make it determines its versatility, as they affect the material’s quality, durability, and strength. The manner in which metal is cooled has an impact on its microstructure and consequently, its overall properties. It can also be manipulated to achieve specific characteristics, such as yield strength, machinability and resistance to corrosion.

Steel is iron which has had other elements added to it to improve its physical properties and make it suitable for certain uses. The proportions of these extra alloying elements determine what steel category it belongs to, and thereby its overall performance across different applications.

For instance stainless is composed of a minimum of 11% chrome. This makes it invulnerable against corrosion. This is what makes it ideal for a wide range of kitchen appliances and cutlery. Tool steel is a preferred material due to its high hardness and resistance to abrasion. It’s also used for machine dies and hand tools. Furthermore, the high weldability and ductility of carbon steels makes them ideal for a wide range of applications. Electrical steel is a special steel grade that is composed of silicon (typically around 3%) This improves its magnetic properties, as well as reducing eddy-current losses. It is therefore ideal for laminations and transformer cores of electric motors.

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