Stainless Steel - A Versatile Engineering Material for Critical Applications

Abstract:

Stainless Steel is a family of versatile materials that has been put into a wide variety of application by mankind. Stainless steels are iron-based alloys containing minimum 12% chromium and upto 25% nickel with minor additions of carbon, nitrogen, molybdenum, tungsten, titanium, niobium, copper and selenium. It has a wide range of applications from small pins to the construction of automobiles, petrochemical, space, aeronautical, ship building industries, nuclear and thermal power stations. Certain grades of stainless steels, because of their biocompatibility are used for manufacture of biomedical implants. In fact steel touches every sphere of our daily life. By and large stainless steel family consists of hundreds of grades with varieties of compositions and a large spectrum of mechanical properties. The corrosion and oxidation resistance of stainless steels have been significantly improved through fine-tuned chemical compositions and microstructural constituents, leading to the evolution of super stainless steels. Stainless steel development from design to application is a long-term continuous effort. The recent advances in stainless steels are mainly due to new ways of manufacture, processing and usage of advanced equipments. In spite of inroads by a range of competing materials, stainless steels occupy an important place as structural materials, because of their outstanding strength to weight ratios, ductility, fracture toughness, repairability, corrosion, etc for a given cost. Over the years, MIDHANI has catered to the requirements of Indian Space, Nuclear, Thermal, aeronautical and Defence sector for many high performance materials. A wide range of special stainless steels many of them being tailor made to customers specific needs have been developed and supplied. This has been possible with the help of state of the art facility and excellent quality assurance system available in MIDHANI. The presentation will high light MIDHANI role in development and commercial production of different varieties of stainless steels for critical applications.

References

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