In daily precision machining, we have encountered a lot of types of raw materials. The commonly used material types are roughly classified as metal materials and non-metal materials.
Briefly, there are 6 types of commonly used raw materials in machining.
The metal materials are mainly Carbon Steel and Alloy Steel, Stainless Steel, Copper & Copper Alloy, Aluminum & Aluminum Alloy, Titanium & Titanium alloy; While the non-metal materials are mainly Ceramics, Plastics, Rubber and Wood.
For Top Level Intl., we can generally process all the above-mentioned metal materials and some plastics and ceramics. Today, let us take you to a general understanding of 6 types of raw materials that we often process in precision CNC machining.
Carbon Steel and Alloy Steel
What are carbon steel and alloy steel?
As we know from the name, carbon steel is a special type of steel. It has a higher concentration of carbon than other types of steel. Generally, most types of steel have a relatively low carbon content of about 0.05%~0.3%. However, carbon steel has a carbon content of up to 2.5%. Maybe you think 2.5% carbon content sounds insignificant, but it brings some attractive benefits that you could not find among other types of steel. So carbon steel raw materials are popular and widely used in the CNC machining field.
Commonly used carbon steels: Q195, Q215, Q235/S235JRC, 1010, 1015, 1020, 1045, 1060, 1117, 12L14, 12L15, etc.
Alloy steel is a type of steel that a variety of alloy elements are added on the basis of carbon steel to improve carbon steel’s mechanical properties. The common alloy elements are Manganese(Mn), Nickel(Ni), Chromium(Cr), Molybdenum(Mo), Silicon(Si), Vanadium(V), and so on. The total amount of the mentioned alloy elements is between 1.0% and 50% by weight. Generally speaking, alloy steel refers to low-alloy steel.
Commonly used alloy steels: 4130, 4140, 4340, 40Cr, 42CrMo, 25CrMoV, etc.
Stainless Steel
The definition of stainless steel
By definition, Steel is an alloy of iron（Fe） and carbon(C). While stainless steel is a group of steel that contains at least 10.5% chromium(Cr), less than 1.2% carbon(C) and other alloy elements. Among the principle of elements, chromium is an element that prevents the iron from rusting and also provides heat-resistant properties.
In fact, stainless steel is a kind of alloy steel. It is of excellent corrosion resistance and mechanical properties that can be enhanced by adding other elements, such as nickel (Ni), molybdenum(Mo), titanium(Ti), niobium（Nb), manganese(Mn), etc. Since stainless steels are so commonly used that we are interested in introducing this type of material separately here.
Commonly used Stainless Steels: SUS303, SUS304, SUS316, SUS420, SUS430, 17-4PH, 440C, etc.
Copper & Copper Alloy
What is copper material?
Copper is a soft, malleable, and ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Its density is 8.96 g/cm³. A freshly exposed surface of pure copper has a pinkish-orange color. People usually use copper material to make a conductor of heat and electricity.
Commonly used serial numbers: C1100, T27300, T27600, T28200, etc.
What is the definition of copper alloy?
Copper Alloys are metal alloys that have copper as their principal component. They have high resistance against corrosion. Their densities are usually between 8.5~8.8g/cm³. The best known traditional types are bronze, where tin is a significant addition, and brass, using zinc instead.
Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc. If the alloy contains just copper and zinc, it is called ordinary brass. In order to improve the properties of ordinary brass, the raw material supplier usually adds 1%-5% tin, lead, aluminum, silicon, iron, manganese, nickel and other elements to obtain some updated brasses. They are called complex brass. Among them, lead brass is one of the most important and widely used complex brasses with excellent cutting performance and wear resistance. Lead brass contains less than 3% lead.
In CNC machining services, ordinary brass and lead brass are widely used to manufacture various precision parts.
Commonly used serial numbers: H62(C28000, CuZn40)，H65(C27000, CuZn35)，H68(C26800, CuZn35)，Hpb59(C37700, CuZn38Pb2), HPb62(C36000,CuZn36Pb3).
Aluminum & Aluminum Alloy
According to the content of aluminum and other elements in aluminum alloy, the aluminum material includes pure aluminum and aluminum alloy.
The definition of pure aluminum
The aluminum content in pure aluminum is 99.0% min. And its density is close to 2.7 g/cm³. This material can be classified as high purity aluminum(the purity is 99.93%~99.996%), industrial high purity aluminum(the purity is 99.85%~99.9%) and industrial pure aluminum (the purity is 99.0%~99.9%) according to its purity.
Commonly used coppers: T1, T2（C1100, C11000), T3,TU1, TU2
What is aluminum alloy?
The aluminum alloy is obtained by adding alloying elements to pure aluminum. According to the processing characteristics of aluminum alloy, they can be divided into deformation aluminum alloy and casting aluminum alloy.
In this article, we are just talking about the commonly used serial numbers of deformation aluminum alloy. They are AL2024, AL5052, AL6061, AL6063, AL6068 and AL7075.
Titanium & Titanium Alloy
The appearance of titanium and titanium alloy materials is steel-like, glossy, and the density is 4.51g/cm3, which is only 57% of steel. It has many advantages, such as low density, light weight, high specific strength, good performance at low temperature and high temperature, excellent corrosion resistance, and so on.
Titanium and Titanium alloys are widely used in rocket, missile, satellite, spaceship, warship, military industry, medical treatment and petrochemical industry; In addition, titanium and titanium alloys are non-magnetic. With non-magnetic and high strength properties, they are excellent materials for manufacturing deep-sea submarine shells.
Commonly used Titanium & Titanium alloys: TC4(Ti-6Al-4V, GradeF5, Grade5), TA7 (Ti-5Al-2.5Sn) and commercially pure titanium TA1, TA2, TA3.
Commodity Plastic & Engineering Plastic
In precision machining, we manufactured many plastics parts. The raw materials are commodity plastics and engineering plastics. Then what specific commodity plastics and engineering plastics are commonly used in precision plastic parts manufacturing? Today we are sharing them with you.
What is commodity plastic?
It is also called Commodity polymer. They are plastics produced in high volumes for applications where no exceptional material properties are needed. Such as packaging, food containers, and household products).
Compared to engineering plastics, commodity plastics tend to be inexpensive to produce and exhibit relatively weak mechanical properties. And they are more widely used.
Commonly used commodity plastics: PS/Polystyrene, PVC/Polyvinyl Chloride, PP/Polypropylene, PE/Polyethylene, etc.
What are Engineering Plastics?
They are a group of plastic materials that have better mechanical and thermal properties. The term usually refers to thermoplastic materials rather than thermosetting ones.
Compared to commodity plastics (such as PE, PP, PVC), people usually choose engineering plastics once they need better mechanical strength or thermal resistance.
Commonly used engineering plastics: PEEK, PEI, PI, ABS, Nylon(PA), POM(Delrin), PMMA/Acrylic, PVDF, Teflon(PTFE, PCTFE), etc.
Thanks for reading this article. Top Level Intl. hope it can help you to learn more basic information about this topic. Well, If you have any further questions about it, feel free to let us know now! Then we will get back to you and share more information soon!
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