In this video we discuss Nitrogen Strengthened Austenitic and Duplex Stainless Steels. For the full transcript, click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/nitrogen-strengthened-austenitic-and-duplex-stainless-steels/ This is the last of our series on the basics of the various types within the family of alloys classified as “stainless steels“. Today we’ll be discussing Nitrogen Strengthened Austenitic and Duplex Stainless Steels  First up is a category that has the austenitic type structure but  these alloys have higher strengths achieved by using Nitrogen and higher levels of Manganese in the chemistry. All these types are non-magnetic. Various grades were developed and made popular with the proprietary name”Nitronic”.  Three of the most popular are Nitronic 40, Nitronic 50 and Nitronic 60.  All have strengths nearly double those of the 300 series in the annealed condition.     Nitronic 40 (aka 21-6-9)  is made in two  variations depending on the carbon content. UNS S21900 has .point 08 % maximum carbon and UNS S21904 is restricted to .point 04 maximum carbon. In ASTM standards, the grades are designated as XM-10 and XM-11. AMS 5656 requires the low carbon version.

Today we have the 6xxx series alloys where the primary alloying elements are magnesium and silicon. For the full transcript, click here:  https://www.michlinmetals.com/6000-series-aluminum-6061-t6-6063-t5-6262-t9/ If you did not see our earlier video on the heat treated temper designations or for a review....click here now.  The Aluminum Association, the American industry organization that has established standards uses a comparative rating system for various properties  of aluminum alloys.  An A rating is the most favorable and E is the least.  Again these are comparisons within aluminum alloys. An alloy and temper rated "A" is superior to one rated "B" and so on.  Selection of alloy and temper is best left to the design engineers.  The popular alloys for our video are 6061, 6063, and 6262.

In this video we introduce Aluminum into the mix of material which we discuss. For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/introduction-to-wrought-aluminum-alloys-2024-6061-7075/Aluminum weighs about point 1 pound per cubic inch while iron is almost three times as much.   Aluminum has even more going for it, corrosion resistant in many environments and also pretty easy to fabricate.  If you look around you can probably identify something made with  Aluminum.   To name a few...Cell phone and computer components..... cookware....... automotive parts and fancy wheels....... office window frames.... and a whole lot of that  airplane overhead.

Todays' video introduces you to the family of alloys that carry the Inconel name. For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/inconel-inconel-600-inconel-625-inconel-718-inconel-x-750/Inconel is a trade name of Special Metals Corporation. Other metal producers of generic material cannot use the Inconel trademark. Five of the more popular of the Inconel family are Inconel Alloy 600,  601, 625, 718, and X-750.  The first three are not hardenable by heat treatment.  The others are grades that can be strengthened by " Precipitation Hardening" heat treatment.  Nickel and Chromium are the major elements of these alloys and they have strength, corrosion and oxidation resistance over a wide range of temperature and environments.  This family of alloys finds numerous uses in chemical processing equipment as well as many high temperature applications requiring resistance to oxidation such as furnace fixtures and retorts. Inconel alloys are found in aerospace applications including jet and rocket engine components.

Topic for this video is a category of alloy steels that achieve very high strength levels with a simple heat treatment after the manufacture of the part. For the full transcript, click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/maraging-steels-maraging-200-maraging-250-maraging-300/ These alloys are called "Maraging" steels. MAR from martensite and AGEING for how they develop  strength.   Conventional steel alloys  like 4340 ,that can achieve comparable strength levels have a minimum carbon content of point 4 % and require a high temperature austenitizing step followed by rapid quenching and then a final tempering to develop their strength. Needless to say, this process can be very troublesome in many part configurations. With these carbon levels any welding requirement can be very problematic.

So today we're talking about Incoloy. Our topic covers four of the most popular of the series of Incoloy alloys and some other alloys of similar chemical compositions and applications. For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/incoloy-alloys-incoloy-800-incoloy-825-incoloy-925/Incoloy is a trade name of Special Metals Inc and generic versions can not carry the Incoloy name.  This group is higher in Nickel than the stainless family and alloyed with enough Cr and other elements so that iron makes up less than half of the composition.

We are using English units of measure (UOM) in our examples, but metric units are also often seen. Full Transcript: https://www.michlinmetals.com/steel-descriptions-how-to-decode-steel-acronyms/  Today our example description is 2 INCH RD 4140 CF ANN BAR ...... CF for Cold Finished instead of last weeks' HR for hot rolled. All steel products are Hot Rolled or Hot Finished prior to being Cold Finished.  Cold finished is a generic term that includes the following more specific terms: CR for Cold Rolled CD for Cold Drawn G&P for Ground and Polished T&P for Turned and Polished TG&P for Turned, Ground and Polished

This is Part 2 on Nickel Alloys. For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/nickel-alloys-part-2-monel-400-monel-r-405-monel-k-500/ In our second part we are going to talk about the family of three alloys of  nickel and copper which are Monel 400 – Monel R-405 – Monel K-500……. compositions are roughly two thirds Nickel and one third Copper……. These elements form a solid solution with each other.. a stable mixture that cannot be made stronger by heat treatment.  It takes certain additional elements to make an alloy strengthened by heat treatment.  These three alloys are named  Monel 400, Monel R- 405 and Monel K-500 when produced by Special Metals Corporation.  Generic versions cannot carry the “Monel” name.

Today's topic is  focused  on wrought Nickel metal ....things commercially available as bars, forgings, tubing, and plate products.  For the full transcript click here: https://www.michlinmetals.com/nickel-200-nickel-alloys/ Commercially pure Nickel 200 or generic alloy 200 has a UNS  (Unified Numbering System) chemistry designation UNS N02200.  It contains a minimum of 99.0% Nickel (plus cobalt) with other elements restricted carbon to a MAXIMUM   of point 15 % ; iron to point 40 %; copper  to point 25%; manganese to point 35%; silicon to point 35; and sulfur to point 01%.  Of note here is that we said that there can be some cobalt included in the required minimum percentage of nickel. Because they are found together in the ores they are produced from;  there is higher cost in separating the two elements to greater degrees.  Metallurgically similar in many ways, allowing "nickel plus cobalt" when possible is a matter of cost. Cobalt would be in the  restricted elements if it were an issue in the performance of the alloy. The lower a cobalt content in a nickel alloy  the  higher the cost of the raw materials to produce it. 

In this video we start our series on Nickel and Cobalt Alloys. 

For the full transcript, click here: 

https://www.michlinmetals.com/introduction-to-nickel-and-cobalt-alloys/

These differ from stainless steel in many ways. They are better suited for higher temperature application. In the Nickel base category we have alloys with  common proprietary names like Monel, Incoloy, Inconel, Haynes, Waspaloy, Nimonic, and Hastelloy as well as generic versions designated only by the "alloy number" For instance, we have Nickel 200/201, Monel 400, Monel 405, or K500, we have Inconel 600/625/718/800 H/HT/825. There's Hastelloy grades C22/C276 and Hastelloy X. There's many more but for now, that's a good start. In the Cobalt base we have trade names of Haynes and Stellite, L605, and MP35N. Cobalt is also extremely expensive. Tune in to find out even more!