Square Metal Tubing: Determine If It’s Ferrous or Non-Ferrous

Metals are categorized in many ways, many of which are meant to determine the applications they are most suited for. Among these is by their iron content. Metals that contain iron are classified as ferrous metals, while those that don’t contain iron are classified as non-ferrous. Why is it important to categorize metals this way?

Discovery

Iron was discovered in 3000 B.C. but it’s only around 1200 B.C. when it became widely used for various applications. It is also during this period when combining iron with other metals became more commonplace. This gave birth to ferrous metals. Non-ferrous metals were discovered much earlier, around 5000 B.C., and it was their discovery that marked the end of the Stone Age.

Production

Roughly 90 percent of all metals produced by foundry around the world are ferrous, and it’s not hard to understand why. Ferrous metals, such as all kinds of steel, are used in the construction of buildings, roads, bridges, and dams among many others. Non-ferrous metals, on the other hand, are often produced and utilized for smaller scale applications, such as the manufacture of electronics and communication devices.

Some of the most popular types of ferrous metals are steel, cast iron, and wrought iron. Steel, which originally consists of iron and a trace amount of carbon, can be combined with other metals, such as chromium, to improve its properties. Oppositely, the best examples of non-ferrous metals are copper, brass, and bronze.

Properties and Applications

Steel is produced by combining iron and carbon. The role of carbon in the mix is to enhance the sturdiness of iron. This doesn’t necessarily gives steel better resistance to corrosion. Its iron content still makes it fully capable of forming rust when exposed to oxygen. To solve this issue, non-ferrous metals are sometimes alloyed with steel. Chromium, for instance, when added to steel, produces stainless steel. Despite the addition of a non-ferrous metal, steel remains tough and hard due to the presence of carbon and the natural properties of iron.

The only drawback of carbonating steel or having too much iron is that the resulting metal becomes less malleable and ductile, two special properties that are very unique to non-ferrous metals. Copper, brass, bronze, and even silver and gold are very easy to form into sheet or wire without breaking. And since they don’t contain iron, they don’t rust when exposed to moisture. Non-ferrous metals are also non-magnetic unlike ferrous metals.

With these differences in properties, you can easily tell why ferrous metals are the most ideal materials for construction, while non-ferrous metals work better when used for making pipes, tubes, electronic components, cutlery, and the like. Although non-ferrous metals can be made tougher and harder like steel, they still wouldn’t be an ideal alternative to the latter because they are low-abundant metals. It would cost tremendous amounts of money to produce enough non-ferrous metals for massive projects like a skyscraper or a long bridge.

When you’re looking for metal supplies to use in your project, it’s essential to determine whether they are ferrous or non-ferrous first. This way you will know if they possess the properties you need to make the project work. If you need round or square metal tubing that doesn’t corrode, then you should look for non-ferrous metals. Suppliers that specialize in copper, brass, and bronze products, such as Rotax Metals, will be able to help you.

Sources:

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FERROUS AND NON-FERROUS METALS, generalkinematics.com

Metals, statista.com

Iron: historical information, webelements.com

Why Square Metal Tubing Is Worth the Cost When Used for Your Next Projects

Metal tubes come in different shapes and sizes. The most common type utilized by architectures and designers are the round tubes. Although round metal tubes are a very popular option, square metal tubing also has its share of valuable features that are known to many consumers. The secret is finding the best applications for tubes with this particular shape. Here are some of the advantages of square metal tubing that are worth noting:

All about Round and Square Metal Tubing for All Your Building Needs

Metal tubes play an important role in the stability of many mechanical systems. They provide efficient structural support and also have aesthetic function when arranged systematically or if they are made from quality metals, such as bronze or brass. They usually come in different materials, lengths, and cross-sectional shapes in order to meet various needs and applications.

They Are Not Pipes

While tubes and pipes have the same structure, they are not the same material. You can distinguish one from the other by the way their cross-sections are measured or determined. A tube’s cross-section is measured by its outside diameter, while a pipe is measured by its inside diameter.

The reason for this is that pipes are used for conveying fluids, which puts stress on its interior surface. Tubes, on the other hand, usually function as a structural element so the stress is expected to be concentrated within their outer layer. And there’s the issue of aesthetics, which isn’t much of a concern with pipes, considering that they will end up being buried underground or concealed within the walls and ceiling.

You may ask, if tubes only have structural functions, why do they have to be made to look like pipes in the first place? Well, that’s where consideration of efficiency comes in. It would be costly to use solid rods of similar diameters on structures. If you reduce they diameter to lessen the cost, the resulting metal would be too small to resist other forces. Plus, because tubes are hollow, they are lighter and easier to work with than solid bars.

Manufacturing Tubes

There are several metalworking techniques that are used for manufacturing tubes. The most efficient of these is extrusion, a process that involves pressing a material into a die to achieve a desired cross section. There are two ways to do it:

Cold-Drawing. Metal is drawn over a mandrel at room temperature. Because no chemical change is involved in the process, the “cold finished” is expected to have increased mechanical properties and uniform dimensional tolerances. Complex profiles, however, may require multi-pass drawing to produce the desired tolerances.

Annealing. To make it easier to extrude certain metals, they are subjected to heat treatment. This may alter the physical and sometimes the chemical properties of the metal but the result is almost the same as that of cold-drawing except the metal’s electrical conductivity is increased.

If you are looking for high-quality tubes for your project, you have to a supplier that has been in the business for many decades. Suppliers like Rotax Metals, which has been catering to various industries since 1947 surely have a huge inventory that you can choose from. Whether you need round or square metal tubing, they’ve got you covered.

About Rotax Metals: Rotax Metals is a premier provider of metal supplies based in Brooklyn. We specialize in all kinds of copper, brass, and bronze supplies. We cater to various industries and professionals, including architectural designers, furniture manufacturers, artisans, and metal fabricators. We also perform metal shearing, water jet cutting, and metal fabrication.

Sources:

What Is Annealing in Metallurgy?, thebalance.com

How Is Steel Tubing Made?, sciencing.com

Brazing Copper to Copper: Joining Square Metal Tubing Made a Whole Lot Easier

Traditionally, joining one square metal tubing to another is achieved through two means: brazing and soldering. Brazing is the process of joining materials at an elevated temperature of between 1000 to 2300℉. It is a joining technique that, according to the American Welding Society, has been used since ancient times but has continued to play an important role in today’s society. Brazing copper results in higher joint strength for applications such as jewelry, kitchen cutlery, bathroom faucets and high temperature ceramics. The technique also delivers superior fatigue resistance for carrying loads such as pressure, thermal expansion or dead weight in automotive engines, jet aircraft engines and air conditioning systems.

When done right, brazing permanently joins base materials together whether they are dissimilar metals or of different thicknesses and surface areas. To make the process easier, here are some tricks you can apply to your project.