Nippon Steel & Sumikin Stainless Steel Corp. (NSSC) has developed the world’s first Sn-added low-interstitial ferritic steel grades, named the “FW (forward) series”. This was achieved by making use of NSSC’s own seed technology that can drastically improve the corrosion resistance of ferritic stainless steel by adding a micro amount of tin (Sn). NSSC also announced that from July it has begun marketing/distributing the first FW series steel, “NSSC® FW1”, a highly corrosion resistant, low-chrome, and low-interstitial ferritic stainless steel, which consists of 14% Cr but which has a corrosion resistance level equivalent to 18% Cr stainless steel grades (Tp.430, SUS430LX, Tp.439, etc.). NSSC® FW1 has the highest-level workability among ferritic steel sheets, thus it can be adopted to a wide range of applications, including those in which existing 18% Cr grades are often used. Since NSSC® FW1 is an ultra fine-grained steel with low-alloy elements (no addition of Ni or Mo, and with reduction of Cr), it conserves alloy resources and is stable in cost by minimizing the effect of fluctuations of raw material prices.
