Pennsylvania Precision Cast Parts (PPCP) Now Offers a Selection of Duplex Stainless Steel Alloys to Meet Customers’ Special Needs
Lebanon, PA (PRWEB) October 30, 2014 -- Pennsylvania Precision Cast Parts (PPCP), an industry-leading investment casting company located in Lebanon, Pa., is now offering customers a wide range of duplex stainless steel alloys to meet their specialized needs and specifications. PPCP produces top-quality investment castings for a broad range of parts, industries and applications.
“Our industrial investment casting customers have increasingly demanding needs and requirements that take specialized alloys to satisfy,” says Andrew Miller, President and CEO of PPCP. “By offering a selection of duplex stainless steel alloys, we can more effectively and economically deliver the characteristics and performance they need from the parts we cast.”
PPCP’s duplex stainless steel alloys can provide customers with a variety of benefits from higher strength and less weight to greater corrosion resistance and better price stability. Yet only a small percentage of the market is currently utilizing these high-value alloys for their investment castings.
“Put simply, duplex stainless steel is primarily a combination of austenitic and ferritic grades of steel in varying proportions,” says Steve Bates, PPCP Staff Metallurgist. “Each has its own properties, which can be combined to produce duplex alloys that meet specialized needs and applications far more effectively than either of the component steels.”
Austenitic steel tends to be non-magnetic and more formable, but with lower strength and less resistance to corrosion cracking. Ferritic grades are magnetic and stronger than austenitic steel, but do not weld as well in thick sections and they lose their toughness at low temperatures. Combining the two grades can produce a new set of characteristics that better suit certain applications.
“For example, blending austenitic and ferritic steels in approximately equal proportions creates a duplex with highly desirable characteristics for many uses,” says Bates. “The resulting duplex tends to have higher strength, good weldability in thicker sections, reasonable toughness and adequate resistance to corrosive cracking.”
This duplex stainless steel is very good for a variety of applications:
• Oil and gas equipment
• Offshore technology
• Seawater desalination plants
• Chemical industry, especially when handling chlorides
• Flue-gas cleaning
• Desalination plants and seawater systems
• Pulp and paper industry
• Cargo tanks and pipe systems in chemical tankers
• Firewalls and blast walls on offshore platforms
• Bridges
• Storage tanks
• Pressure vessels, reactor tanks, and heat exchangers
• Rotors, impellers and shafts
• Other similar applications
“Duplex alloys, however, are not limited to equal proportions of austenitic and ferritic grades of steel,” says Bates. “Varying the proportions enables us to fine-tune the alloy to produce exactly the stainless steel castings our customers specify. We constantly produce highly customized duplexes, as well as other types of alloys.”
Duplex stainless steel has a variety of elemental components that achieve the desired specifications when combined in carefully determined proportions. Producing exactly the right formula takes skill and experience.
“Our menu of duplex stainless steel alloys is just the start at PPCP,” says Miller. “We are constantly creating new and specialized alloys to better meet our customers’ needs.”
Company Information - Pennsylvania Precision Cast Parts (PPCP) is an industry-leading manufacturer of top-quality investment castings for a broad range of parts, industries and applications. PPCP has the experience, technical expertise and quality-assurance processes necessary to consistently and reliably deliver castings up to 250 pounds in an extensive array of alloys, from steel and aluminum to highly specialized materials. Located in Lebanon, Pa., PPCP has two fully equipped facilities, cutting-edge equipment and technology, advanced processes and one of the most experienced teams in the industry. PPCP delivers investment casting excellence through exceptional People, Process and Performance.
Crystal Miller, Pennsylvania Precision Cast Parts (PPCP), http://ppcpinc.com/, +1 (717) 273-3338, [email protected]
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