Exploring Small Steel


Whether end-users know it or not, the supply of steel castings is trending increasingly toward smaller components.


Shea Gibbs, Senior Editor W


hen most of us think steel, we think big and strong: railroad components, structural mining parts, Super-


man. But steel also can be cast into smaller, intricate shapes to serve im- portant niche applications. The main markets for steel castings


are oil fi eld, construction, trucks and pumps, and the steel casting alloys used in those applications can be broken down into the following cat- egories: carbon and low alloy steels, corrosion resistant steels, heat resistant steels, manganese steels and “other steels,” including wear- and abrasive- resistant and high alloy steels. The non-railroad markets for carbon


and low alloy steel castings are heavily skewed toward what we would think of “smaller” steel castings (less than 100 lbs., many lighter than 50 lbs.). Of 585,000 tons of available steel casting supply forecast for 2011 by Stratecasts Inc., Ft. Myers, Fla., 34% (by weight) of the castings are expected to be between


0 and 100 lbs. In the corrosion resistant steel market, 49% of the available cast- ings are expected to be 0-100 lbs., and in the heat resistant market, 63% are forecast at that weight level. According to Raymond Monroe,


executive vice president of the Steel Founders Society of America, Crystal Lake, Ill., the industry makes many castings that are “relatively small.” From 2005 to 2006 (the last years from which the SFSA’s data is available), Monroe said steel castings from 0-50 lbs. grew from 6.37% of the market share to 11.19%, one of the fastest growing segments by size (Table 1). Monroe and other experts in the


fi eld of steel design and casting believe the combination of the material’s mechanical properties, metalcasters’ improving ability to work with the material, and the inherent ability of the metalcast- ing process to put metal only where it is needed all are driv- ing the growth of the material in smaller applications.


Examining the Trend Steel is not easy to


cast, according to Mon- roe. The material has a limited fl uid life and higher viscosity com- pared to iron


Steel castings can as small as a pencil, like this medical instrument component, or larger than a man, like this military base, and anywhere in between.


42 METAL CASTING DESIGN AND PURCHASING JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011


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