Fast steel

Quick steel drilling an aluminium sheet with methyl alcohol as a lubricant.

The fast steels, high-speed steels or HSS (High Speed Steel) are a series of steels used in tools, generally M and T series (AISI-SAE). With molybdenum and tungsten (it can also have vanadium and chromium), they have good resistance to temperature and wear. It is generally used in drill bits and milling, taps, to carry out machining processes with machine tools.

History

HSS was discovered in 1898 by Frederick Winslow Taylor, an American engineer best known for having laid the foundations of the Scientific Organization of Labor (Taylorism). He worked at Bethleem Steel and discovered, after many experiments, that adding tungsten to a steel alloy in a proportion of between 1 and 18% tungsten increased its austenitizing temperature to 1200 °C., which allows its hardness and wear resistance properties to be preserved up to very high temperatures.

It was based on the RMS steel discovered by Robert Mushet 30 years ago and which had been used as the best steel for cutting tools.

Intended as tool steel, it was able to increase the usual cutting speed of 10 m/min to 40 m/min.

High Speed Steels (HSS) have high levels of hardness and very good wear resistance at high rolling temperatures. This grade is produced by the Double Centrifuged Casting (Duplex CC) method and the core material is Perlitic Spheroidal Graphite (SG) iron.

Its composition and subsequent heat treatment ensure that the hardness of the outer layer of the HSS material will reach 80/85° shore `C', with a uniform hardness throughout its useful life, while the structure of Complex carbides of vanadium, tungsten, niobium and molybdenum in a martensitic matrix ensures even wear as well as high wear resistance. This type of cylinder is used in finishing positions to increase campaign times and obtain a better finish on the surface of the laminated product.

Today we have a variety of high-speed steels:

• HSS
• HSSE Steel with Cobalt Content
• HSS Co5 (cobalt alloy at 5%)
• HSS Co8 (cobalt alloy at 8%)
• HSS Co10 (cobalt alloy at 10%)
• HSS-G Quick quality M2 or Alto Re