Classification of Steel

Besides the Iron Man there is another superhero who wears a suit made ​​of steel. Would you like to try it?

Steel classification is important in understanding what types are used in certain applications and which are used for others. For example, most commercial steels are classified into one of three groups: plain carbon, low-alloy, and high-alloy.

Steel classification systems are set up and updated frequently for this type of information. Therefore, if directly involved in the steel industry, it can be classified by a variety of different systems depending on:

• The composition, such as carbon, low-alloy or stainless steel.
• The manufacturing methods, such as open hearth, basic oxygen process, or electric furnace methods.
• The finishing method, such as hot rolling or cold rolling
• The product form, such as bar plate, sheet, strip, tubing or structural shape
• The deoxidation practice, such as killed, semi-killed, capped or rimmed steel
• The microstructure, such as ferritic, pearlitic and martensitic
• The required strength level, as specified in ASTM standards
• The heat treatment, such as annealing, quenching and tempering, and thermomechanical processing
• Quality descriptors, such as forging quality and commercial quality.