Development of Non-leaded Free-Cutting Steel at Posco

by Kiho Rhee, Sang-Bok Ahn, Duk-Lak Lee

Publisher - POSCO, PoHang, South Korea

Category - General Novel

In low carbon free-cutting steels, lead (Pb) is an important alloying element for enhancing the machinability such as tool life, surface roughness, chip disposal, etc. Despite of many advantages of lead on machinability, the environmental restrictions based on legislation have stimulated the demand for a less hazardous alternative. In this study, the non-leaded free-cutting steel recently developed at POSCO will be introduced. The machinability of the developed free-cutting steel is compared to that of commercially available leaded free-cutting steel, SAE12L14. Turning tests were conducted in-house for machinability evaluation. The results demonstrate that the newly developed non-leaded free-cutting steel exhibits competitive machinability compared to the leaded counterpart.

Please login to borrow the book.