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Classification of Steel Welding and NDT

There are four basic types of steel: carbon steel, alloy steel, stainless steel, and tool steel. Carbon steel is classified as low, medium, or high carbon based on carbon content and accounts for over 90% of steel production. Alloy steel contains additional alloying elements to achieve desired properties. Stainless steel contains a minimum of 10.5% chromium which forms a passive layer providing corrosion resistance, and is further divided into ferritic, martensitic, austenitic, duplex, and precipitation-hardening types. Tool steel has high carbon content and additional elements like tungsten and cobalt, making it suitable for tools requiring strength and wear resistance.

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238 views4 pages

Classification of Steel Welding and NDT

There are four basic types of steel: carbon steel, alloy steel, stainless steel, and tool steel. Carbon steel is classified as low, medium, or high carbon based on carbon content and accounts for over 90% of steel production. Alloy steel contains additional alloying elements to achieve desired properties. Stainless steel contains a minimum of 10.5% chromium which forms a passive layer providing corrosion resistance, and is further divided into ferritic, martensitic, austenitic, duplex, and precipitation-hardening types. Tool steel has high carbon content and additional elements like tungsten and cobalt, making it suitable for tools requiring strength and wear resistance.

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ALFA ENGINEERING
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Types of steel – Classification of steel

Based on the chemical compositions, Steel can be categorized into four basic
groups:

 Carbon Steel
 Alloy Steel
 Stainless Steel
 Tool Steel

1. CARBON STEEL: Carbon steel is the most utilized steel in the industries and
accounts for more than 90% of the total steel production. Based on the carbon
content, Carbon steels are further classified into three groups.

 Low Carbon Steel/Mild Steel


 Medium Carbon Steel
 High Carbon steel

Carbon content is given in the table below:

S.No. Type of carbon steel Percentage of Carbon

1 Low Carbon Steel/Mild steel Upto 0.25%

2 Medium Carbon Steel 0.25% to 0.60%

3 High Carbon steel 0.60% to 1.5%

2. ALLOY STEEL: In alloy steel, varying proportions of alloying elements are


used, in order to achieve desired (improved) properties such as weldability,
ductility, machinability, strength, hardenability and corrosion resistance etc.
Some of the most used alloying elements and their effects are as follows;

 Manganese – Increases strength and hardness, decreases ductility and


weldability
 Silicon – Used as deoxidizers used in steel making process
 Phosphorus – Increases strength and hardness and decreases ductility and
notch impact toughness of steel.
 Sulfur –Decreases ductility, notch impact toughness and weldability. Found in
the form of sulfide inclusions.
 Copper –improved corrosion resistance
 Nickel – Increases hardenability and Impact strength of steels.
 Molybdenum – Increases hardenability and enhances the creep resistance of
low-alloy steels

3. STAINLESS STEEL: Stainless steels – Stainless steel is an alloy steel with


10.5% Chromium (Minimum). Stainless steel exhibits extraordinary corrosion
resistance due to formation of a very thin layer of Cr2O3 on the surface. This
layer is also known as passive layer. Increasing the amount of Chromium will
further increase the corrosion resistance of the material. In addition to
Chromium Nickel and Molybdenum are also added to impart desired (or
improved) properties. Stainless steel also contains varying amounts of Carbon,
Silicon and Manganese.

Stainless steels are further classified as

1. Ferritic Stainless Steels


2. Martensitic Stainless Steels
3. Austenitic Stainless Steels
4. Duplex Stainless Steels
5. Precipitation-Hardening (PH) Stainless Steels

 Ferritic: Ferritic steels consists of Iron-Chromium alloys with body-centered


cubic crystal structures (BCC). These are generally magnetic and cannot be
hardened by heat treatment but can be strengthened by cold working.
 Austenitic: Austenitic steels are most corrosion resistant. It is non-magnetic
and non heat-treatable. Generally austenitic steels are highly weldable.
 Martensitic: Martensitic stainless steels are extremely strong and tough but not
as corrosion-resistant as the other two classes. These steels are highly
machinable, magnetic and heat-treatable.
 Duplex Stainless Steels: Duplex stainless steel consists of a two-phase
microstructure consisting of grains of ferritic and austenitic stainless steel ( i.e
Ferrite + Austenite). Duplex steels are about twice as strong as austenitic or
ferritic stainless steels.
 Precipitation-Hardening (PH) Stainless Steels: Precipitation-Hardening (PH)
Stainless Steels possess Ultra high strength due to precipitation hardening.

4. TOOL STEEL: Tool steels have high carbon content (0.5% to 1.5%). Higher
carbon content provides higher hardness and strength. These steels are mostly
used to make tools and dies. Tool steel contains various amounts of tungsten,
cobalt, molybdenum, and vanadium to increase the heat and wear resistance
and durability of the metal. This makes tool steels very ideal for using as cutting
and drilling tools.

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