What is austenitic stainless steel?

What is austenitic stainless steel? What are the components of austenitic stainless steel? What are the characteristics of austenitic stainless steel? What are the applications of austenitic stainless steel? In this article, we will answer these questions in detail.

What is austenitic stainless steel?

It is a special type of stainless steel alloy. It is characterized by high contents of chromium and nickel. Austenitic steel is non-magnetic and has excellent welding and formability properties.

What are the components of austenitic stainless steel?

It is a chromium-nickel alloy containing approximately 18% chromium and 8% nickel. They are non-magnetic and have higher corrosion resistance than other types of stainless steel. Austenitic stainless steel is also less likely to become brittle at low temperatures.

What are the characteristics of austenitic stainless steel?

It is a special type of stainless steel alloy with high contents of chromium and nickel. Compared to other types of stainless steel, they have a lower carbon content, which gives them excellent resistance to intergranular corrosion. Austenitic steel also has good formability and weldability.

Some key characteristics include:

• High corrosion resistance
• High ductility and toughness
• Good formability and weldability
• Excellent low-temperature performance

What are the applications of austenitic stainless steel?

It is the most widely used type of stainless steel. They are chromium-nickel alloys with a chromium content ranging from 16% to 30% and a nickel content of up to 35%. They are known for their excellent corrosion resistance and good mechanical properties.

Some common applications include:

• Food processing equipment
• Sinks and work surfaces
• Chemical storage tanks
• Pressure vessels
• Aerospace components

More about the applications of austenitic stainless steel:

Austenitic 304 stainless steel plate is a material that is alleged to provide strong rust and corrosion resistance, excellent plasticity and toughness, and is easy to stamp and form. With a density of 7.93 g/cm³, 304 stainless steel is a very common type of stainless steel, also known as 18/8 stainless steel in the industry. Its metal products are heat-resistant and have good machining properties, making them widely used in industries such as the furniture and decoration industry, food and medical industry.

Production Process of Austenitic Stainless Steel

The production process performance of austenitic stainless steel is good, especially for chromium-nickel austenitic stainless steel. Various commonly used specifications of plate, tube, strip, wire, bar stock, and forgings and castings can be produced smoothly using conventional methods for producing special steel.

Due to the high content of alloy elements (especially chromium) and low carbon content, most austenitic stainless steels are produced in large quantities using arc furnace plus argon-oxygen decarburization (AOD) or vacuum oxygen decarburization (VOD) methods. For high-grade small-volume products, vacuum or non-vacuum non-induction furnace smelting can be used, and electric slag remelting may be necessary if necessary.

The excellent thermoplastic properties of chromium-nickel austenitic stainless steel make it easy to perform hot processing such as forging, rolling, hot piercing, and extrusion. The heating temperature of the steel ingot is 1150-1260 ℃, and the deformation temperature range is generally 900-1150 ℃. Steel grades containing copper, nitrogen, and stabilized with titanium and niobium tend to rely on low temperatures, while high chromium and molybdenum steel grades tend to rely on high temperatures. Due to poor thermal conductivity, the insulation time should be longer.

After hot processing, the workpiece can be air-cooled. Chromium manganese austenitic stainless steel has a strong sensitivity to hot cracking. When the steel ingot is opened, small deformation and multiple passes are required, and forgings should be stacked and cooled. It can perform cold processing techniques such as cold rolling, cold drawing, and spinning, as well as forming operations such as stamping, bending, curling, and folding.

The work-hardening tendency of chromium-nickel austenitic stainless steel is weaker than that of chromium-manganese steel, and the cold deformation after one annealing can reach 70% to 90%. However, due to the high deformation resistance and strong work hardening tendency of chromium manganese austenitic stainless steel, the number of intermediate softening annealing should be increased. The general intermediate softening annealing treatment is water cooling at 1050-1100 ℃.

Austenitic stainless steel can also be used to produce castings. To improve the fluidity of the steel liquid and improve the casting performance, the alloy composition of the casting steel should be adjusted: increasing the silicon content, broadening the range of chromium and nickel content, and increasing the upper limit of the impurity element sulfur content.

Austenitic stainless steels should be subjected to solution treatment before use to maximize the solid solution of carbides and other precipitates in the steel into the austenite matrix, while also homogenizing the structure and eliminating stress, thereby ensuring excellent corrosion resistance and mechanical properties. The correct solution treatment system is to heat at 1050-1150℃ and then water cool (thin parts can also be air cooled). The solution treatment temperature depends on the alloying degree of the steel: low-molybdenum or low-molybdenum steel grades should be lower (≤1100℃), while higher alloyed grades such as 00Cr20Ni18Mo-6CuN, 00Cr25Ni22Mo2N, etc. should be higher (1080-1150℃).

Advanced technologies are widely used in production, such as the refining rate outside the furnace reaching over 95%, the continuous casting ratio exceeding 80%, and the high-speed rolling mills, precision, and fast forging machines being widely promoted. In particular, the implementation of electronic computer control in smelting and processing ensures the reliability and stability of product quality and performance.

Why Choose Sino Stainless Steel?

Thank you for reading our article and we hope it can let you have a better understanding of what is austenitic stainless steel. If you are looking for suppliers and manufacturers of austenitic stainless steel, we’d advise you to visit Sino Stainless Steel.

As a leading supplier of 304 Stainless Steel products across the world, Sino Stainless Steel provides customers with high-quality  Stainless Steel Angles, Stainless Steel Channels, 201 Stainless Steel Strips & 304 Stainless Steel Strips, 310S Stainless Steel, 316 and 316L Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel Hexagon Bars, Hot-rolled Stainless Steel, Colored Stainless Steel Sheets, Stainless Steel Perforated Sheets, Cold-rolled Precision Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel Wire, and Embossed Stainless Steel Plates at a very competitive price.