Achieving Lightweight Products: Martensitic Stainless Steels

摘要

With ever-increasing federal safety regulations and pressure from consumers, manufacturers are turning to new technologies to help them achieve their goals of making components stronger and lighter. Much promise lies with advanced materials technologies utilizing exotic engineering alloys or carbon composites; however they have seen very limited use in production due to high material costs and lack of compatibility with existing manufacturing processes. Low cost martensitic stainless steels, on the other hand, provide excellent mechanical properties, including specific strength, toughness and fatigue performance, in addition to corrosion resistance while remaining easy to form, fabricate and process in the annealed state. New developments in welding and thermal processing are enabling the cost-effective use of martensitic stainless steels in exciting new applications. These advancements, coupled with an increased demand for high strength lightweight structures, are positioning martensitic stainless as an attractive alternative to costly high-alloy materials.