Designing with stainless steel – SCI webinar

15/11/22

Intro – what is stainless steel. Min. 10.5% chromium. Creates a self-healing oxide layer (around 5
microns thick) which protects the steel from corrosion.

Benefits include high strength, high corrosion resistance, hygienic, aesthetic, durable.

Lends itself to being used in situations where maintenance is awkward, costly or impossible due to
access issues.

Five categories of stainless based on their crystalline structure; austenitic, ferritic, duplex (austenitic
– ferritic), precipitation hardening, martensitic.

Austenitic & duplex most common for use in construction.

Ferritic used sometimes but generally just internally due to lower corrosion resistance.

Austenitic is not magnetic (when in the soft condition i.e. annealed i.e. not cold formed). It is more
ductile and formable than duplex but has a lower strength. Duplex offers higher strength to weight
ratio.

Typical duplex grades; 1.4162 (2101) lean duplex and 1.4462 – 2205.

Austenitic has good energy absorption due to its high ductility.

When looking at fatigue, the rules for carbon steel in BS EN 1993-1-9 can be applied to stainless
steels too.

Stainless bolts are detailed by EN ISO 3506:2020.

Fastener references show a number of properties:

When choosing which corrosion class of stainless to use, need to refer to the corrosion resistance
factor. This is determined by the application/ location and takes into account chloride presence; F1
(e.g. road salts, marine environment), Sulphur Dioxide; F2 (industrial processes, road tunnels) and
cleaning/ exposure to rain; F3. The corrosion resistance factor, CRF, is determined by F1+F2+F3.

CRF dictates which of the five corrosion resistance classes are required.

To calculate deflections the secant modulus should be used due to the lack of a defined yield point
for stainless.

Stainless steel has around 3 times lower thermal conductivity than carbon steel but has higher
thermal expansion. This means that weld distortion can be much greater in stainless sections.
Residual stresses can also be higher.

When determining potential for bi-metallic corrosion, PD 6484 is a useful reference.