Stainless Steels for Design Engineers

The rate of growth of stainless steel has outpaced that of other metals and alloys, and by 2010 may surpass aluminum as the second most widely used metal after carbon steel. The 2007 world production of stainless steel was approximately 30,000,000 tons and has nearly doubled in the last ten years. This growth is occurring at the same time that the production of stainless steel continues to become more consolidated. One result of this is a more widespread need to understand stainless steel with fewer resources to provide that information. The concurrent technical evolution in stainless steel and increasing volatility of raw material prices has made it more important for the engineers and designers who use stainless steel to make sound technical judgments about which stainless steels to use and how to use them.