How To Test SS Material?

The standard test requires the standard education in material science and paid access to the appropriate industrial standard for your region.

If only you could Google, "test standard".

Sure you can Google them. What you will get is the titles of the standards and the organizations (like the ASTM standards) which will be glad to send you a copy for a price that is a stretch for the average engineer in a small company. This stuff is all under copyright.

That's the way it works in the USA. I've always had a problem with this; but that's the way we do business here. Maybe a good subject for a separate topic.

In a practical sense recognized materials handbooks like the ASM series cover materials properties as well as test methodologies and are a good reference source. Older copies can be found on eBay. University and some major city libraries in the USA have copies. Any manufacturing corporation large enough to maintain an engineering library ought to invest in a current series of the ASM materials handbooks.

It's not really practical to refer to the ASM handbooks or any other handbooks or textbooks as part of a commercial contract the way one can refer to an ASTM, ASME or other engineering organization standards. That leaves the engineer with the job of extracting relevant information from such sources as handbooks and creating his own standard if purchasing an engineering standard document is not practical.

If you are in the position of a supplier quoting a job whose requirements include things like meeting specific ASTM specs you either need to buy the spec or get advice on the meaning of the spec from a trusted technical source. In the case of common steels the common AISI alloy designations generally only cover important elemental constituents. When you must refine the spec of the material you get into the ASTM spec designations. In most commercial situations the supplier of your steel material is usually a trusted source of what ASTM spec the material meets. You can always ask a supplier for written certifications on materials; but that usually adds to the price or in the case of large contracts you pay for that certification service in some way when the price gets negotiated.

Hope this helps..... Ed Weldon

How about PMI (Positive Material Identification) ?

How about PMI

Well yes and no. We are using XRF PMI here and it will not detect Carbon. The original poster did not mention WHICH Test or what the criteria is.

Ron

Okay, someone has to ask the obvious....test for what? Strength or other mecahncial properties? Corrosion resistance? Chemical composition? How to identify an unknown alloy?

What if our ambiguous friend here is actually looking for a verification test if something was really used or owned by the Schutzstaffel?