Stainless Steel

Stainless steel plate steel grades covers four series of Austenitics, Ferritics, Martensitics and Duplex. 304 and 316 stainless steel plate and sheet belongs the austenitic family of stainless steel and they are one of the most versatile and widely used types of stainless plate.

Austenitics or 300 series

0.015 to 0.10% carbon, 16 to 21% chromium, 6 to 26% nickel, 0 to 7% molybdenum. The presence of nickel improves corrosion resistance in certain media and makes stainless steel more ductile. The presence of molybdenum further enhances the resistance to corrosion in an acid medium. The most common grades are 304/304L and 316/316L.

Austenitics with manganese or 200 series

These are chromium manganese steels, with a low nickel content (always below 5%).

Ferritics or 400 series: the KARA ferritic offer

0.02 to 0.06% carbon, 10.5 to 30% chromium, 0 to 4% molybdenum. Commonly used internally, these grades are now being developed for envelope and structural products.

Austeno-ferritics or Duplex

0.02% carbon, 0 to 4% molybdenum, 1 to 7% nickel and 21 to 26% chromium. These stainless steels not only offer excellent quality, because of their low nickel content – a material that suffers from highly speculative prices – they are also very cost effective.

Martensitics

0.1% carbon, 10.5 to 17% chromium.