Stainless steel flange simplified as SS flange, it refers to the flanges that made of stainless steel. Stainless steel flanges are highly resistant to rust, are much stronger and can out perform carbon steel flanges and provide much more corrosion resistance than your aluminum or steel flanges.
Stainless steel flanges are generally produced by investment casting or forging process. Investment casting is a lost wax casting process that forms stainless steel flanges by pouring liquid steel water into the cavity of solid ceramic shell. While, forging is another shaping process by pressing pressure on steel billets to achieve the flanges. By comparision, investment casting is more flexible, mainly because:
1. Flexible selection on material grades. With investment casting, different types of stainless steel grades can be selected, mainly used grades are 304 stainless steel and 316 stainless steel. If forging, due to the poor fluidity of stainless steel billets, the production effecienty is lower, while higher labour cost.
2. Flexible flange types and sizes. Investment casting is actually a custom and copy process for stainless steel flanges in different shapes and sizes. These types of flanges include FF flanges, RF flanges, MFM flanges, TG flanges and RJ flanges.
3. Flexible order volume. Investment casting can produce stainless steel flanges in both small and large volume. For initial trial order, the quantity is always not large, which investment casting is the right selection. But for forging, if the order volume is small, it is difficult for forging factory to order raw material.
As the professional stainless steel investment casting company in China, CFS Foundry is professional on investment casting process for custom stainless steel flanges. According to our experience of investment cast stainless steel flanges, we summarise the types in below:
304 Investment Cast Stainless Steel Flanges
304 is a relatively versatile investment casting grade when stainless steel is required make parts that require good overall performance (corrosion resistance and formability). In China, 304 steel is called 0Cr19Ni9 or 0Cr18Ni9 stainless steel, as 304 contains 19% Cr and 9% Nickel. Besides casting stainless steel flanges, 304 stainless steel can also be used to cast other components, such as pipe fittings, food machinery components, marine hardwares, building hardwares, etc.
316 Investment Cast Stainless Steel Flanges
Compared to 304 stainless steel, 316 stainless steel material have additionally of Nickel and Molybdenum, which in China called 18Cr-12Ni-2.5Mo steel. So normally it has extra Mo 2.0 to 3.0 percent than 304 steel. And this Mo is an element to offer better resistance for high temperature.
Therefore, It is particularly good in corrosion resistance, atmospheric corrosion resistance and high temperature strength. It can be used under severe conditions which it has excellent work hardening property (non-magnetic).
Of course, investment casting is mainly suited to cast stainless steel flanges in low or medium working environment. For high pressure stainless steel flanges, forging process is suggested. Any inquiry for cast stainless steel flanges, pls feel free to contact us!
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