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dan915518
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Material Properties

10/24/2007 9:41 AM

I have a small piece of material that is .002 thick and very flexible. I think it is either a spring steel or a stainless steel. I'm leaning more to the side of spring steel. I need to know the cheapest way I can find out exactly what it is. I have went to some testing sites and they are very expensive. Any help would be appreciated.
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ozzb
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#1

Re: Material Properties

10/24/2007 12:43 PM

Is it magnetic. Could be S.S. shim stock.

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dan915518
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#2
In reply to #1

Re: Material Properties

10/24/2007 12:51 PM

Yes it is, but so is spring steel.
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ozzb
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#3
In reply to #2

Re: Material Properties

10/24/2007 3:44 PM

most spring steel has a blue finish.

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HarryBurt
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#6
In reply to #2

Re: Material Properties

10/25/2007 9:23 AM

Someone got it backwards. 300 series stainless steel is non-magnetic. Spring steel and 400 series stainless are magnetic.

A drop of copper sulfate will plate copper on steel, but not on stainless steel.

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MUKULMAHANT
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#8
In reply to #6

Re: Material Properties

10/25/2007 11:58 AM

The above are simple ways to come to a conclusion.
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Anonymous Poster
#4

Re: Material Properties

10/25/2007 9:08 AM

Best (=cheapest) place is to go a local metal scrap yard. They should have some test equipment that they could use and tell you what it is for free.
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Bancha
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#5

Re: Material Properties

10/25/2007 9:23 AM

Weigh it on a scale and estimate density - from this you can narrow it down. Then, approach a simply supported or clamped free boundary condition, tap it, and count the oscillations to see what the first mode frequency is. You may be able to estimate young's modulus from this, but it may not be that accurate without accelerometers and an analyzer...
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Paddler
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#7

Re: Material Properties

10/25/2007 11:41 AM

If it can be destructively tested...

I recall an older welder that had a reference book that described the result of grinding different metals. The the sparks that flew from different metals had different lengths, sparkles, light bursts, colors and stuff at the end of flight. They could tell materials by the grinding sparks!

The shop workers tested each other to determine what the metal was by the sparks.

I hope this helps.

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HarryBurt
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#9
In reply to #7

Re: Material Properties

10/25/2007 12:05 PM

Good point, the higher carbon generally has more sparks. Spring steel is high carbon, stainless steel is low carbon.

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Anonymous Poster
#10

Re: Material Properties

10/25/2007 3:07 PM

For some info on spark test try :

http://64.78.42.182/sweethaven/BldgConst/Welding/lessonmain.asp?lesNum=1&modNum=4

Note that the 300 series of stainless steels can become magnetic when heavily cold worked to make spring steel.
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Users who posted comments:

Anonymous Poster (2); Bancha (1); dan915518 (1); HarryBurt (2); MUKULMAHANT (1); ozzb (2); Paddler (1)

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