Motorsport Fabrication Fundamentals: Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Materials
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Ferrous and Non-Ferrous Materials
02.43
| 00:00 | - It's imporant to know and understand that metals are split into two categories, ferrous and non ferrous metals. |
| 00:07 | Ferrous refers to the metal containing iron, making non ferrous pretty self explanatory. |
| 00:12 | Ferrous metals include cast iron, mild steel, stainless steel and chromoly. |
| 00:17 | These are just a few of the well known ones but there are over 3500 types of ferrous metals available for all different types of manufacturing processes. |
| 00:25 | These metals can also be broken up into two categories, low alloy steels and high alloy steels. |
| 00:32 | When we use the term steel, we're referring to a mixture of iron and carbon, steel isn't an element but rather a mixture of elements and when we mix elements to produce steel, it's known as an alloyed steel. |
| 00:45 | This contains a variety of elements between 1-50% of its given weight to improve its mechanical properties. |
| 00:52 | Low alloy steels contain a variety of different elements from 1-5% of their given weight while high alloy steels range from 5 to 50%. |
| 01:01 | An example of a high alloy steel would be stainless steel with its large amounts of chromium and manganese to improve corrosion resistance and hardness. |
| 01:10 | Unlike ferrous metals, non ferrous metals don't contain iron and are used in motorsport chiefly for their ability to increase conductivity, dissipate heat, reduce weight and also resist corrosion. |
| 01:22 | The most popular non ferrous metals are aluminium and titanium but other non ferrous metals like copper, brass, silver, gold and lithium also have their place on our cars, although not typically when it comes to fabrication. |
| 01:36 | It's important to understand that all metals are a mixture of chemical elements used to produce a material that's fit for the purpose it was developed for. |
| 01:44 | We often see different grades of steel, titanium and alloy that incorporate many elements of each others chemical make up and each grade has slightly different properties that make it best suited for a very specific use. |
| 01:57 | The general rule of thumb is that ferrous metals are magnetic and non ferrous metals are not. |
| 02:04 | Setting up and welding mild steel and chromoly is easy with magnetic aids but low iron steels like stainless have a reduced magnetic attraction. |
| 02:11 | Since they are non ferrous, aluminium and titanium have no magnetic attraction at all and these require different set up techniques for fabrication process that would normally involve magnetic clamping aids. |
| 02:23 | Although there are thousands of different metals in the world, we really don't need to understand them all. |
| 02:28 | As motorsport fabricators, we'll only be working with a very select range of materials but knowing where they come from and how they've been developed will hopefully give us a better understanding of exactly what it is we're working with. |
