My background is in non-metallics so hopefully someone here can help. What are the basic chemical tests used to differentiate between stainless steels?
A so-called "Basic 8" analyzes for C, Mn, Si, P, S, Cr, Ni, Mo. (This typically costs an bout $100)
Some alloys should be checked for Cu, Ti or Cb, the last 2 for stabilized grades like 321 and 347.
Please clarify if your question is related to differentiating various grades of stainless steels by chemical tests or you are interested in chemical analysis of the different constituents in stainless steel?
The question was how to differentiate between different grades of stainless using chemical analysis. Thanks for the inputs. I also found 3 ASTM test methods that detail chemical tests to quantify alloying constituents to determine which steel you have.
see ASTM E350 for wet chemical analysis and E281 and E 282 for spectrochemical methods.
Be cautious when using commercial labs for analysis because they seldom have adequate standards for all the elements found in stainless and can be pretty far off.
If the stainless is a mill product of known source, ask the supplier to do a gratis analysis for you.
