Serving All Your Stainless Steel Tempering Requirements
Tempering, or cold rolling, is a work hardening process used to change the crystalline structure and shape of stainless steel without using heat.
Instead, the material is moved through a modern Z-mill which utilizes a series of work rolls to apply mechanical stress on the steel, achieving precise, uniform gauge reduction. This allows harder materials to be rolled without intermediate anneals, resulting in increased material strength and ductility up to 20% and improved corrosion resistance, dimensional accuracy, and surface finish.
Tempered stainless steel is often used in applications where the metal needs to be formed or bent without the risk of breaking, such as automobiles, appliances, medical devices, and other everyday items.
Tempered stainless steel coil can be precision rolled to extremely tight tolerances. During this process, we achieve various levels of temper, such as ¼, ½, ¾, and full hard. The hardness level depends on how much cold work has been done on the steel. Tempered coils are a result of greater amounts of reduction (sometimes up to 60%). This increases the yield point but decreases the ductility of the steel. ¼ hard steel can be bent back over itself without breaking, while ½ hard can be bent at a 90-degree angle, and full hard can be bent at a 45-degree angle without breaking.
