11–20 of 251 posts
Why aren't bridges and ships made out of stainless steel? Is it too expensive, or not as strong as regular steel?
Even if it was built, you'd also probably see people stealing parts of the structure for scrap value... Not a good thing to have happen.
Why aren't bridges and ships made out of stainless steel? Is it too expensive, or not as strong as regular steel?
There is a steel called Corten where the rust develops a protective layer similar to aluminum and won't rust all the way through. The only issue is it isn't good when exposed to constant water as the rust will wash off and not protect.
This is an important issue. People keep talking about recycling, but much more important than recycling is just being able to use a thing for longer before you are even thinking about recycling it. Japanese automakers did the world a great favor when in the 80s and 90s they made much longer lasting cars and made longevity and resale value an important consideration in the purchasing decision. They did this mostly by…
This is baseless fanboyism.
The European carmakers lead the way with various degrees of zinc plating and dipped coatings being widely implemented on their products in the 70s and 80s. Then around that time lead paint got banned in the US (creating that generation of cars that faded a lot in the 80s) and everybody in the US market was like "hey, we need alternatives that don't break the bank, let's copy what they're doing". The Japanese and US makers both upped their game for the north American market over roughly the same time period. The Japanese have never really taken corrosion prevention very seriously before or since. They and the US makes generally take a "we do as good a job as we need to remain competitive but we don't go above and beyond" attitude whereas the Europeans tend to put quite a bit more effort in.
Edit: If you want someone to lie to you to confirm your biases that's not gonna be me.
This is an important issue. People keep talking about recycling, but much more important than recycling is just being able to use a thing for longer before you are even thinking about recycling it. Japanese automakers did the world a great favor when in the 80s and 90s they made much longer lasting cars and made longevity and resale value an important consideration in the purchasing decision. They did this mostly by…
Why aren't bridges and ships made out of stainless steel? Is it too expensive, or not as strong as regular steel?
This is why I get scared when I see articles about people developing plastic eating bacteria. Sure it is great for reducing waste but it’s a dangerous game to be playing for sure.
Why aren't bridges and ships made out of stainless steel? Is it too expensive, or not as strong as regular steel?
https://www.pennstainless.com/resources/product-information/...
Is pretty good stuff and
https://www.cralloys.com/alloys/17-chrome/
is possibly better still.
If you want (much) better rust resistance than that you are going to be into coatings or active protection such as cathodic protection using a sacrificial material.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathodic_protection
Coatings work well as long as there is no mechanical abrasion of the coating, cathodic protection works very well until you run out of sacrificial material.
Why aren't bridges and ships made out of stainless steel? Is it too expensive, or not as strong as regular steel?
[1] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence-class_littoral_co...
Why aren't bridges and ships made out of stainless steel? Is it too expensive, or not as strong as regular steel?
IIRC stainless isn't actually rust proof, especially in applications where there is a lot of interaction with odd chemicals and things like sea water, so bridges may not be an ideal use for the product.
Now other thing I wonder is how structurally sound some of the stainless alloys are? Do they have similar characteristics to steels now used?