Choosing Right Grade of Stainless Steel for Your Clamps

Stainless steel is an alloy resistant to most types of corrosion, including Red Rust. It is an ideal material for making hose clamps that will meet your job requirements.

But stainless steel comes in a wide variety of types and grades (and with a wide range of price tags alike), so it's hard to figure out which stainless steel grade is best for your own business. Understanding what stainless steel is and how it works will help you find the right scaffold tube clamps.

These nicknames are given to refer to several basic types of alloys. In each, the first number refers to the overall group that the individual grade is part of:

1XX: lean alloy stainless steels

2XX: nickel-chromium austenitic stainless steels

3XX: higher nickel-chromium austenitic stainless steels

4XX: martensitic and ferritic stainless steels

The other two numbers reflect the ratio of other alloy components. Unless you are an expert in metallurgy, you may not need to know specific chemical formulas, for example, 304 vs. 316 stainless steel.

What you need to know is that each of these formats has a certain amount of space embedded in them; the AISI and SAE standards define a scope for each component. For example, 301 is made of stainless steel, an alloy of nickel and chromium, of six basic elements. For each element, the required amount is determined as a percentage, such as 6% to 8% for nickel.

So an actual piece of stainless steel 301 will vary slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer, and even from group to group by one manufacturer. Any individual piece may be at the lower end of the acceptable range of nickel. In this case, it will be certified as a 301 stainless steel, but it may not perform the same thing as a piece with a higher nickel content. Because each of the other five elements has an acceptable range, quality and performance can vary significantly between two samples.

It is therefore essential to find a supplier you can trust to provide quality steel that meets your standards. see more about 12 inch caster wheels

Picking for Performance

In general, the lower the number of AISI, the lower the price of steel. Price is not the only problem, though: other attributes also vary by grade.

Corrosion Resistance

Chrome is what makes stainless steel "rustproof"; it creates a "self-healing" oxide film that resists rust under normal conditions. This film is formed when stainless steel is cut, so the rust resistance is a feature of the material itself, unlike the metal surface layer or coating. All stainless steel provides a baseline level of rust resistance.

In addition, there are other types of corrosion, in addition to more difficult environments. Components other than chromium can be added to steel to meet these challenges. For example, molybdenum, made up of 316 steels, improves corrosion resistance in environments with high levels of salt and chloride, such as coastal areas or heavily salted roads.

Strength

Some applications require high-strength clamps that will withstand high pressure or temperature - or both - so they don't bend. Such an application can call a fixation made from one of the 4XX stainless rows.

Ductility

The "softness" refers specifically to the quality of the metal that makes it capable of extraction in a wire, but in general the softness of quality means that it is formable - it is the amount of "tender" in the metal. For some applications, softness can be an advantage.

Magnetism

Despite the reputation of stainless steel for being non-magnetic, some grades may show simple degrees of magnetism and are still illegal. But for some high-tech applications, even a simple level of magnetism may not be unacceptable. In this case, you want a clamp made of 316 stainless steel.

Weldability

Sometimes you need to be able to solder the clamp to other components in the installation. Stainless steel welding requires not only specific techniques, but the appropriate type of stainless steel. Check with your supplier to make sure that the clamp you are considering will fit itself.

Easy to use scaffolding accessories such as forged swivel coupler,  scaffolding tube lock, i beam pipe clamp, gravlock coupler, 12 inch steel caster wheels and steel tube clamps available in AAIT Scaffold, the leading distributor of scaffolding equipment in the USA.

Report this Page