Stainless steel fabrication is a process where you transform a metal sheet into useful products. For example, making electrical enclosures, cabinets, or doors from sheet metal.
Depending on the stainless steel parts you wish to make, steel fabrication can be a single or more processes.
You will learn more about various sheet metal fabrication techniques shortly.
Austenitic is popular in metal fabrication due to:
There are many stainless steel metal grades. However, the 300 series are the most common stainless steel sheet metal for fabrication.
You can also refer to them as austenitic stainless steel.
Some of the most common stainless steel grades include:
Stainless Steel 301: It has low chromium and nickel content. However, the level of carbon is slightly higher than 304.
SS 301 is affordable and a perfect choice for structural parts.
Stainless steel 304: It is popular for most custom stainless steel sheet fabrication due to excellent formability and corrosion resistance. SS 304 is the best for sheet metal parts such as cabinets, enclosures, tanks, etc.
Stainless steel 316: Molybdenum in stainless steel 316 improves corrosion resistance. It is a perfect choice for high-corrosion environments like marine equipment, reactor tanks, or chemical containers.
Let’s summarize other vital mechanical properties in the table below:
| 301 Stainless Steel | 304 Stainless Steel | 316 Stainless Steel | |
| Tensile strength (Mpa) | 205 | 215 | 290 |
| Shear Modulus (Gpa) | 74 | 77 | 74 |
| Elongation at break (%) | 40 | 70 | 50 |
| Hardness (Brinell) | 217 | 123 | 217 |
| Density (g/cm3) | 8.03 | 8 | 8 |
