Cast Iron | Carbon Steel |
Stainless Steel | Engineering Steel |
Ferrous metal means that it has iron in its make-up. But this doesn’t mean just traces or small amounts of iron. When the term ferrous metal is used, it typically means that iron is a large percentage of the metal’s elemental composition. In fact, it’s likely to be the second or third largest part of the metal, if not the largest.
Many metals contain small amounts of iron. If they were all classed as ferrous, the category wouldn’t have much meaning, so a small amount is not considered enough to declare the metal ferrous.
The iron found in ferrous metals tends to make them magnetic, strong, and hard. The characteristics of a ferrous metal can differ greatly depending on the other elements they are made up of. Because they have a high carbon content, ferrous metals are vulnerable to rust when exposed to moisture.
Because ferrous metals tend to be strong and durable, they have many uses in construction and engineering. You can find ferrous metals in large structures such as skyscrapers and bridges. Furthermore, ferrous metals are used in shipping containers, industrial piping, cars, railroad tracks, and domestic tools.
Aluminium | Copper |
Brass | Nickel |
Non-ferrous metals do not contain a significant amount of iron in their composition. Non-ferrous alloys generally have iron compositions of less than 1% as measured by weight.
It is hard to define the common properties of non-ferrous metals because there is such a variety of metals that fall into the non-ferrous category. However, non-ferrous metals all do have a couple of things in common: They are not magnetic, and they do not rust (although they can corrode). This means that non-ferrous metals will never form the red flaky material you see on some steel and iron, because rust is iron oxide and non-ferrous alloys have no significant amount of iron in them.
Non-ferrous metals have had many uses throughout history, with copper and bronze being heralded for advancing civilisation through from the stone age to 1700 BCE, when people learnt to mine copper and tin to make bronze weapons. Today, non-ferrous metals are used for construction, making tools, electrical cables, vehicle engines, pipelines, containers, and even cutlery.
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