When it comes to selecting the right gauge metal for your Phoenix based projects, Arizona Iron Supply has the answers. We supply a wide variety of metal castings, sheet metal, and various other metal accessories to companies all across Phoenix and Tucson Arizona. In this blog post, we’ve got some thoughts about the best grades of Stainless Steel in Phoenix.

Two of the most important important metals for making durable, high-corrosion and temperature-resistant Stainless Steel are chromium and nickel. Alloying chromium with steel makes it rust and corrosion resistant, and adding nickel to steel contributes to the formation of austenitic structures, which gives steel its strength, toughness, and malleability without brittleness.

Grade 404 and Grade 316

Two grades of steel made stronger by adding chromium and nickel alloys are grades 404 and 316.

Grade 404 Stainless Steel contains about 8 – 10.5% of nickel by weight and about 18 – 20% of chromium by weight. With outstanding corrosion resistance, this grade of Stainless Steel is used in the manufacture cooking equipment, kitchen appliances, piping, in building structures, chemical processing plants, and more.

Grade 316 Stainless Steel also has high amounts of chromium and nickel, but is also has molybdenum, a metal found naturally in various states of oxidation, which helps form hard, stable carbides in alloys. 316 Stainless contains between two and three percent of molybdenum, which gives it the high heat and corrosion resistance properties. In the presence of chloride ion, it also resists pitting, and is in general practical when working with acids. Molybdenum is what makes 316 steel such a durable and corrosion resistant material. 316 Stainless Steel is commonly used for medical equipment, in high heat applications like furnaces, jet engines and car engines, in chemical processing plants, and even in oceanic uses.

We’ve only focused on two steels that are corrosion and heat resistant, but there are many gauges of stainless steel. Feel free to contact us and we’ll help you select the best grades of Stainless Steel in Phoenix, for all your manufacturing needs. Better yet, if you’re in the neighborhood, stop in and have a chat with us.

Images used under creative commons license – commercial use (7/22/2018) Damien Pollet (Flickr)