What is carbon steel?
The carbon steel actually refers to the carbon content in the steel, which depends on the mechanical properties. Generally, the steel without adding alloy elements is also known as carbon steel, and it refers to iron carbide with carbon content less than 2%, while carbon steel also contains a small amount of silicon, manganese, sulfur and phosphorus in addition to Carbon. Normally, the higher carbon content in steel, the better the hardness and strength, but the lower ductility.
Low carbon steel (C < 0.25%): Its strength and hardness are low. Most of them are used in engineering structural parts without heat treatment, and some are used for mechanical parts.
Mild carbon steel (0.25% < C < 0.6%): Medium carbon steel is mostly used to produce various mechanical parts, and some are used to make engineering structural parts.
High carbon steel (0.6% < C < 1.7%): After proper heat treatment, the high carbon steel has better strength and hardness, high elastic limit and fatigue limit.
Why Choose Carbon Steel?
With the increase of carbon content, the strength and hardness of cast carbon steel increase. Cast carbon steel has high strength, ductility and toughness, and low cost. It is used in heavy machinery to manufacture heavy load bearing parts, such as rolling mill frame and hydraulic press base, etc. In railway & transit industry, it is used to manufacture parts with high stress and bearing impact, such as bolster, side frame, wheel and coupler.
After heat treatment, carbon steel castings will get higher hardness and better wear resistance. On the whole, it is the most popular steel in the world because of it‘s great mechanical properties and low cost.
Carbon Steel Casting Process
The technical process of casting carbon steel parts is usually investment casting and sand casting:
Water Glass Casting: It is the most widely used process of investment casting and can produce the tolerance grade of CT7-8 carbon steel parts with complex design, the weight of unit parts in 0.2-80kg. It is a low cost casting method.
Silica sol casting: Also known as precision casting, the casting tolerance can reach CT4-5 and the surface roughness can reach Ra3.2. It will be the best choice if your parts have strict casting tolerance and surface roughness requirements.
Sand casting: This process is usually used to cast carbon steel parts with heavy weight. When the weight is more than 60 kg, investment casting process will be not fit to produce such big parts.
In addition to casting, carbon steel is also widely used in closed die forging and open die forging.
The commonly used steel grades are 20#, 35#, 45#, Q235, Q345, 1020, 1035, 1045……
Carbon Steel Casting in Maple
As a foundry and exporter with more than 15 years of experience, Maple can cast all kinds of carbon steel grades, and also can control the chemical composition according to customers’requirements. We are very familiar with steel and can provide high quality castings for various industry.
We also provide machining services for castings. In our own machineshop, there are various advanced equipment, can meet most of the machining requirements.
If you are interested in our investment casting or have more questions about casting, please contact us. Our engineers will provide you with professional consulting service.