Tips for Choosing Steel Products for Your Home

Here in the Philippines, steel products are used in a wide variety of applications. Because of its excellent resistance to corrosion, steel is a perfect fit for different industries such as food technology, medical engineering, automotive, and home construction.

There are currently five different types of steel you can choose from for your products at home, namely: PH, martensitic, austenitic, duplex, and ferritic steel. These five types, however, can still be divided into numerous steel grades, which makes finding the right type of steel product for your home very difficult.

So how does the average buyer look for the right kind of steel for a specific purpose? Here are a few tips you can use when choosing steel products for your home:

Can it be heat treated?

You might be surprised that not all kinds of steel are suitable for heat treatment. In fact, many ferritic and austenitic grades of steel do not harden when heat treated. Preferably, these kinds of steel need to be worked in cold conditions in order to improve their hardness properties.

Heat treating is not the only way to increase the hardness of steel, so make sure that you are getting the right kind of steel product for the purpose you have in mind.

Will it be formed or welded?

Similar to heat treatment, not all kinds of steel products are fit for welding or forming. The main problems when it comes to steel products are stress corrosion cracking and hot cracking. In particular, martensitic steel products is not a good choice for welding because making any kind of change is difficult due to their high carbon content.

There are some kinds of steel products which are ideal for welding because they contain little amounts of carbon in comparison to other common steel products. Generally, austenitic steel products exhibit good properties for weldability and formability, but because they still contain trace amounts of ferrites, stress cracking can still occur.

How resistant is it to corrosion?

Lastly, steel products are perhaps best known for their excellent resistance to corrosion, but not all kinds of steel are equally corrosion resistant. Certain kinds of steel are superior to other and are a better fit for extremely demanding applications such as constructing hydraulic turbines.

On average, austenitic steel products display higher levels of corrosion resistance because of the high levels of nickel and chromium present in it. This is why this kind of steel is popular when it comes to steam and water fittings and applications.

If you are not going to need a high degree of corrosion resistance for your applications at home, then martensitic and ferritic steel products might be a good choice for you. They display a similar or even higher level of corrosion resistance as austenitic steel while being more affordable.

Key Takeaway

In emerging countries like the Philippines, steel occupies a special place in many different industries across the nation thanks to a long list of benefits it provides.

Therefore, without the right knowledge, choosing the right stainless steel product can be a difficult job. Before you make your choice, whether for your business or house design consider these tips so you can stay informed and know what you want.