Are there any strange buildings around you: solid steel but covered in red and black rust that seem to have stood in the wind and rain for centuries?You may also wonder: can a building like this rust still work?Safe?I can tell you for certain: safety!Not only is it safe, but it is more durable than ordinary steel and will not rust away even if exposed to air for decades.This corroded but durable material is
a special type of steel called weathering steel.Despite its "ugly" appearance, it is actually high-end.
Weathering steel, also known as atmospheric corrosion resistant steel, is a low alloy steel between ordinary steel and stainless steel, made of common carbon steel with a certain amount of copper, as well as phosphorus, chromium, nickel, titanium, vanadium and other corrosion resistant elements.It not only has the characteristics of ordinary steel, such as easy ductility, high strength and fatigue resistance, but also can reach 2-8 times of ordinary carbon steel in terms of corrosion resistance.Such as containers, railway vehicles, oil derricks, drilling platforms, such as the use of harsh environments, high corrosion resistance of steel steel structures will be used.
The rust produced by steel corrosion is a loose porous structure with many microcracks connecting the pores.In this way, the rust ACTS like a sponge and continues to absorb moisture from the air, allowing the steel to rust further until it is completely worn through.
Weathering steel is different from ordinary steel in that it will rust on the surface at the beginning just like ordinary steel.This process is even faster than normal steel because of its high alloy strength.But because the lattice inside weathering steel is more complex, a dark and dense rust layer will grow under the loose rust on the surface.This rust layer consists of -Feooh of nanoparticles.In this dense rust layer, nickel atoms take the place of some iron atoms, making the rust layer cationic selectivity and inhibiting the corrosive anion penetration.
Since the 1990s, in order to adapt to China's explosive development of infrastructure, break foreign monopoly and strive for a broader overseas market, researchers have turned their attention to the development of low-cost, high strength,
higher corrosion resistance of new high-performance weathering steel, and achieved excellent results.The corten steel developed in China does not contain nickel and chromium, but mainly contains copper and phosphorus, and a certain amount of metal elements such as vanadium, titanium, niobium and rhenium, which are rich in China. In this way, the quality is greatly improved and the cost is reduced by more than half, thus gaining the advantage of rolling steel in the international market.
Today, China is a major producer and exporter of weathering steel.Especially in the field of bridge construction, China's weathering steels can not only meet the high strength, low flexural strength, low temperature toughness, weldability and thick plate uniformity required for long-span bridge steels, but also have corrosion resistance and can be used in various pollution environments.Can choose to besmear already, the surface stabilizes processing, also can simply ignore, bare directly use.Weather-resistant steel is complemented by weather-welded materials and weather-resistant high-strength bolts, with relevant standards and specifications behind them.The "weather resistant family" established by Chinese people has greatly enhanced human's ability to use steel, making high durability a normal condition of steel.
Email: annie@AHL Steel .com, Tel: +86 0372 5363205
