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PACE Technologies Metallographic Preparation CLASS Chart icon

CLASS 5 - Medium Hard, Ductile Metals
Examples include stainless steel, soft and medium hard steels.

Description: Class 5 steels are ferrous alloys of iron containing relatively low concentrations of carbon (<2%). Steels also have a wide range of properties due to their ability to be heat treated and annealed. Depending upon the carbon concentration and other alloying elements, the microstructure of steel can be modified by heating, quenching and stress relief (annealing). Common microstructures include pearlite and ferrite for slow cooled low carbon steels and martensite for fast cooled high carbon steels. Pearlite and ferrite are relatively soft and ductile, whereas martensite is hard and brittle.

Preparation Challenge: Metallographic specimen preparation is relatively straight forward.

CLASS 5 icon
CLASS 5 Medium Hard, Ductile Metals
Stainless Steel Soft Steels
300 Series Stainless Steel
300 series cast stainless steel microstructure

Low Carbon Steel - Furnance Cooled
Metallographic micrograph of ferrite and pearlite

400 Series Stainless Steel
Metallographic micrograph of 431 Stainless Steel

Low Carbon Steel - Water Quenched
Metallographic micrograph of Steel Bainite structure


Steel Welds
Steel Welding / Fillet Weld and Analysis
Metallographic micrograph of carbon steel weld

Steel-Copper Weld
Metallographic micrograph of carbon steel weld


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