Drawability of stainless steel sheets

Abstract

Stainless steels can be classified into two categories, i.e. austenitic and ferritic. These materials are different in crystalline structure: where austenitic stainless steel is face-centered cubic, ferritic stainless steel is body-centered cubic. In general, the quality of stainless steel tends to be assessed by its magnetic properties: it is believed that austentic stainless steel is better than ferritic stainless steel, because it is non-magnetic, but, in fact, the drawability of — magnetic — ferritic stainless steel is somewhat better than that of austenitic stainless steel. Press forming, however, consists of both drawing and stretch forming, and thus in the press forming of stainless steel sheets, it is necessary to have a good knowledge of the metallographic factors governing stretch forming and deep drawing. In this paper, the differences between austenitic and ferritic stainless steel of the metallographic factors which control press forming, are discussed.