Steel is a plethora of material that can be employed for a variety purposes. In fact, it’s estimated that 55 percent of the average vehicle is composed of steel. Its flexibility is determined by the type of alloy elements used to make it because these elements affect the strength of the material, durability, and performance. The manner in which metal is cooled has significant effects on its microstructure, and therefore its overall properties. It can be altered to achieve certain properties like machinability, yielding strength, and resistance to corrosion.
In its most basic form steel is iron that has been alloyed with various elements to enhance its physical properties and make it suitable for particular uses. The proportions of the other alloying elements determines which category of steel a steel belongs to and the overall performance for different applications.
For instance, stainless steel contains at least 11% chromium. This makes it impervious to corrosion. This makes it suitable for a variety of kitchen utensils and cutlery. Tool steel, in contrast is extremely high in durability and abrasion resistance which makes it an ideal material for hand tools and machine dies. Carbon steels can also be adapted to a wide range of applications because of their high ductility. Electrical steel is, however is an extremely specialized grade of steel that contains silicon (typically 3percent). This improves its magnetic properties, and reduces the losses of eddy current. This makes it ideal for transformer cores and laminations of electric motors.