Steel has always been a material that fuses beauty with immense strength. This is why many property owners used steel in their homes several decades ago. However, this does not mean that steel is a metal with a link only to the past. On the contrary, many people purchase cutlery and other items made of steel. In fact, steel is staging a resurgence in many homes and offices across Australia. For instance, many commercial and residential properties across the country feature steel staircases. Many people might feel that these stairways offer strength, but compromise the overall décor of the place. But, this is not so. Architects and interior designers have used cutting edge technology to utilise the beauty, the strength and the versatility of steel for a myriad of applications. It is worth mentioning that steel offers immense scope for customisation as well. Given this backdrop, it is hardly surprising that steel is increasingly becoming a material of choice for many builders and interior designers.
It might surprise you to know that there are over 3.500 different grades of steel. For the uninitiated, steel typically comprises iron and carbon. But, the amount of carbon and the level of impurities and additional alloying elements in steel play a significant role in determining its properties and traits. In many cases, the carbon content in steel typically ranges from 0.1 – 1.5 percent. But, some of the most common grades of steel usually feature only 0.1 – 0.25 percent of carbon. Steel manufacturers typically produce different varieties of steel for a myriad of applications. Each variety of steel possesses different characteristics, which make them ideal for the intended use. Experts typically classify steel into the following four groups based on their chemical compositions. These include:
- Carbon Steels: This variety of steel accounts for 90 percent of the total steel production in the world. It contains trace amounts of various alloying elements. Manufacturers produce three further varieties of steel in this category, based on their carbon content. These comprise:
- Low carbon (or mild) steels that contain approximately 0.3 percent carbon
- Medium carbon steels that contain carbon content ranging from 0.3 – 0.6 percent and,
- High carbon steels that contain more than 0.6 percent carbon
- Alloy Steels: This variety of steel contains several alloying elements in variable proportions. These alloying elements include copper, aluminium, manganese, silicon, nickel, titanium and chromium. By varying the content of these elements, manufacturers manipulate various properties of this variety of steel. Some of the properties that manufacturers can vary by varying the content of these alloying elements include the strength, formability, ductility and resistance to corrosion. People use alloy steels in pipelines, auto parts, power generators, electric motors etc.
- Stainless Steels: This variety of steel contains approximately 10 – 20 percent of chromium as the main alloying element. Because of this, stainless steel offers high resistance to corrosion. Stainless steel with over 11 percent chromium content offers 200 times more resistance to corrosion than mild steel. Stainless steels fall into the following categories:
- Austenitic: This is a non-magnetic kind of stainless steel. It contains 18 percent chromium and less than 0.8 percent carbon. People use it for making utensils, piping and food processing equipment.
- Ferritic: This variety of steel comprises 12 – 17 percent chromium and less than 0.1 percent of carbon. It also contains other alloying elements such as molybdenum, titanium or aluminium.
- Martensitic: This contains 11 – 17 percent chromium and as much as 1.2 percent of carbon. This version of stainless steel comes into use for making dental and surgical equipment.
- Tool Steels: These are ideal for making cutting and drilling equipment. This is because they contain varying quantities of cobalt, vanadium, molybdenum and tungsten for increasing their durability and resistance to heat.