Alloying Elements and Steel Properties

Abstract

Steel can be made very soft and excellently formable, but also very hard and brittle. The properties are very complex and determine the suitability of the steel for certain applications. That is why there are so many steels. In order to understand the effect of the equally numerous alloying elements or their combinations in the steels, or to find one’s way around here, an overview of the most important properties should be given first. These generally relate to:

• the state,

• interactions with other materials,

• the behavior under mechanical stress,

• the behavior during production (forming, machining, heat treatment, coating, etc.),

• the behavior under environmental influences.

From this, the properties are roughly divided into:

• physical,

• mechanical-technical,

• technological or manufacturing-technical,

• chemical-technical,

• environmental properties.