Stainless steel Known as a highly versatile and great-strength metal used in big industries and manufacturing, steel also has interesting facts you never knew existed.
Steel is helpful for almost all our living phases– appliances, transportation, manufacturing, production, infrastructure, and even accessories. However, we must have overlooked how they are brought in the first place or their true purpose. Here is a quirky take on some interesting facts about steel!
Stainless Steel Origin: An Accidental Discovery?
An English metallurgist, Harry Brearley, was the first to invent rustless steel (stainless steel) for cannons, trying to find a way to prevent the cannon bores from erosion. Aside from carbon steel, he discovered that chromium-contained steels were highly resistant to chemical attack and rusting.
Excellent Mechanical Properties
Steel is compact with excellent earth elements, granting optional mechanical properties. These properties make stainless steel highly resistant to rust, corrosion, wear, and oxidation. This is why most manufacturers prefer stainless steel as the material used in big industries like automotive, aerospace, and architecture.
Self-repairing Metal
One fantastic thing about stainless steel that separates it from other steel is that it is a self-repairing metal. The metal itself produces a thin oxide film for coating itself from the unsightly scars and rust, which is the way to prevent oxidation and corrosion.
100% Recyclable
Steels are highly recyclable metals. Over an extended period, steel won’t change its mechanical properties or lose its strength, so it is recyclable and reusable repeatedly. To clean an aged steel bar before reuse, centerless grinding can be one of the best ways to restore its outer appearance and enhance surface finish!
Expanding Elements
Stainless steels are dominantly made of steel and iron, which expand when heated. This is why Eiffel Tower in Paris, France, becomes six-inch taller during summer than in winter.
Great Strength
Steel is a metal with the best strength and is roughly 1000 times stronger than iron in its pure form.
Stainless Steel Soap?
Studies have shown that steel can remove odor from the skin. This is the actual theory behind an old chef’s kitchen trick of rubbing hands on a steel surface like a knife or sink to remove the smelly garlic odor from the hands. Now, “stainless steel soap” is said to be rampant in the market for that purpose.
Steels have never failed to amaze us with their versatile features and characteristics. Though we may have seen them almost everywhere we turn, we may have overlooked that in the first place or the science behind them, so we enlisted all here together.
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