The Ultimate Buyer's Guide for Purchasing cold rolled stainless steel coils

24 Mar.,2025

 

The Complete Guide to Buying Metal Products - Mead Metals

AISI

Stands for American Iron and Steel Institute. The institute serves as the voice of the North American steel industry. AISI numbers are used to categorize metals by alloy type and carbon content, and they do it with four digits. The first two digits of an AISI number refer to the alloy type, and the second two digits refer to carbon content.

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ALLOY

A metal made by combining two or more metallic elements. An alloy typically possesses qualities different from those of the components used to create it.

ASM

Stands for American Society for Metals. ASM International is the world's largest association of metal material engineers and scientists. The association engages and connects materials professionals and their organizations to the resources necessary to solve problems, improve outcomes, and advance society.

ASTM

Stands for American Society for Testing and Materials. ASTM International is a not-for-profit organization that develops standards for materials, products, systems, and services. Metal with an ASTM designation meets the international standards for quality and regulations.

CUT-TO-LENGTH

This process levels coil into a flat sheet or blank. The service provides better length and width tolerances than sheared product, and it can improve diagonal tolerances as well.

DEBURRING

Cutting metals can leave behind burrs, which are unwanted raised edges or protrusions. Deburring is the process of removing these burrs with a tool.

DRAWING

Drawing is a metalworking process that uses tensile forces to stretch metal. As the metal is drawn, it stretches thinner, into a desired shape and thickness.

DRAWING TEMPERATURE

Drawing is usually done at room temperature, classifying it as a cold working process. However, it may be performed at elevated temperatures during special applications like on large wires, rods, or hollow sections in order to reduce forces.

ELONGATION

A metal fabricating term that refers to the degree to which a material can be bent, stretched, or compressed before rupturing. A metal's elongation is a point between tensile strength and yield strength, and it is typically expressed as a percentage of the original length.

GAUGE

The thickness of sheet metal in the USA is commonly specified by a traditional, non-linear measure known as its gauge. The larger the gauge number, the thinner the metal.

HEAT LOTS OR HEAT NUMBER

A heat number is an identification number that is stamped on a material plate to prove it meets industry quality standards which require materials to be tested by the manufacturer. The heat lot or heat number is used to identify production runs for quality control purposes.

EDGE ROLLING

Edge rolling is the process of adding finishing edges to metal. It forms the edge of a strip to the desired shape beyond that of a standard slit edge.

MIL STD

Stands for Military Standard. This classification establishes uniform engineering and technical requirements for military-unique or substantially modified commercial processes, procedures, practices, and methods. In order to qualify, materials have undergone rugged, exact testing, equal to the exigencies of combat use.

NORMALIZING TEMPERATURE

Normalization is a heat treatment that relieves stress on steel to improve ductility and toughness in steel that may harden after the cold working process. During normalization, steel is warmed to a temperature just above its upper critical point. Normalized heat treatment facilitates a more uniform final product.

ROCKWELL SCALE

The Rockwell Scale indicates the hardness of materials. Rockwell hardness numbers are most often used to describe the hardness of metals, although they are also used for some plastics. The Rockwell scale is based on measuring the depth of the indentation made by pressing a diamond point into a material.

SAE

Stands for Society of Automotive Engineers. SAE International is a global association of engineers and related technical experts in the aerospace, automotive, and commercial-vehicle industries. Materials meeting SAE standards are internationally recognized for safety, quality, and effectiveness.

SLITTING

Slitting is a precise shearing process, but instead of making cuts at the end of a workpiece like shearing, slitting cuts a wide coil of metal into a number of narrower coils as the main coil is moved through the slitter. During the slitting process, the metal coil passes lengthwise through the slitter's circular blades.

TEMPER

Temper refers to reheating hardened, normalized, or mechanically worked steel to a temperature below the critical range to soften it and improve impact strength. Tempering results in greater toughness by decreasing an alloy's hardness.

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TENSILE STRENGTH

The maximum stress a material will withstand before fracturing or breaking. The ultimate tensile strength is calculated from the maximum load applied during the test, divided by the original cross-sectional area.

UNS DESIGNATION/NUMBER

Stands for the Unified Numbering System for Metals and Alloys. UNS designation provides a means of correlating internationally used metal and alloy numbering systems currently administered by societies, trade associations, and those individual users and producers of metals and alloys. This system is meant to avoid the confusion caused by using more than one identification number for the same metal or alloy, and the opposite situation of having the same number assigned to two or more different metals or alloys.

YIELD STRENGTH

The amount of stress a material can withstand before causing permanent deformity.

The Complete Guide to Buying Stainless Steel Coil

A lot of people find it quite challenging to purchase stainless steel coils. It is to be mentioned that there are more than 60 grades of stainless steel. This is a complete guide to helping people choose the best stainless steel coil.

Let us start.

DifferentFactors You Need Consider

1. Corrosion resistance

This topic of corrosion resistance is extremely important to know when purchasing stainless steel products. The standard grade most commonly used for food grade applications is AUSTENITIC STAINLESS STEEL. Due to its chemistry, austenitic stainless steels show tremendous resistance to basic corrosive environments containing only salt and water. Specifically, our 304 ' grades (including but not limited to), include 18/22, 20/30, 15/25, and 10/15. Use the proper grade based on your installation environs; atmospheric conditions such as air quality, moisture content, and acidity levels can greatly increase the corrosion rate of a product.

2. Resistance to heat

Many More customers choose stainless steel coils because they can use them everywhere without any concern about the corrosion. Temperature is a factor to consider when purchasing stainless steel products. High temperatures, such as in a furnace environment of (900 ' C) can increase the corrosion of stainless steel products. Moreover, high temperature exerts high pressure on the products. So you will have to purchase heat-resistant stainless steel, such as 253MA and 321MA if the temperature is always high.

4. Magnetic response

Austenitic and ferritic grades of stainless steel typically have a lower magnetic content, whereas chromium-based grades are more magnetically active. You must check the magnetic response for each type of grade; austenitic is not as strong as carbonitride and 310, 316, and 430 grade steels so these all tend to show very little effect. Martensitic Stainless with higher magnetic content such as 310, 320, 330, 410, and 416 , which are not magnetic but can be made into hardware that is by using posthardening processes such as nitriding, has deep cryogenic Tempering to achieve those characteristics. Duplex grades like and are ferromagnetic while others like 400CN and 452CBM are paramagnetic.

5. Cost

Cost is one of the most important factors when buying stainless steel coil. Stainless steel of high price can be worth the money as it can run for a longer time. So you need to access the costs depending upon the basis of the life cycle. Different 201 stainless steel coil'sell the products at different costs.

6. Strength required

It can be quite complex to know the steel strength that you require. The strength requirement depends upon the installation environment and the purpose of installation. In some cases, high-strength duplex and austenitic stainless steel are suitable. But in some cases, these can be the most unsuitable as they cannot meet your requirements. So you must check the strength that is required for your work.

7. Common manufacturers

The stainless steel coils are available from a number of manufacturers in the world. Jiangsu Tisco Supply Co.,Ltd is a professional manufacturer with more than 20 years of experience in manufacturing stainless steel, carbon steel, and galvanized steel established in . We also offer stainless steel coils of these brands including TISCO, ZPSS, Baosteel, POSCO, LISCO, YUSCO, Ansteel, QPSS, JISCO, HXSCO, Chengde, Yongjin, Tsingshan, Shouyang, HW, etc. 

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Different Types You Need Consider

301 stainless steel

With high ductile, 301 steel is most used for molding products. It can harden rapidly during machining. As to the abrasive resistance and fatigue strength, 301 steel is better than 304 steel.

302 stainless steel

Its corrosion resistance is the same as 304, but the strength is slightly higher due to the addition of carbon.

303 stainless steel

By adding the elements of sulfur and phosphorus, 303 stainless steel is easier to process when compared to 304 steel.  ISO named it 'A1'

304 stainless steel

304 stainless steel is the most common 18/8 stainless steel. It has also known name 'A2' by ISO.

316 stainless steel

316/316L sheet possesses excellent mechanical properties at sub-zero temperatures and good corrosion resistance making it a great choice for marine applications.

The company is the world’s best Hot Dipped Galvanized Coil supplier. We are your one-stop shop for all needs. Our staff are highly-specialized and will help you find the product you need.