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304 Stainless Steel in Food and Pet Food Equipment: Composition, Performance, and Grade Selection
Created on 10.31
By Orange Zhou,Shanghai Xisheng Taolan Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd.
304 is the default answer in food equipment, and most of the time it is the right one. The trouble starts when a line changes — a wetter product, a saltier recipe, a hotter wash — and the specification does not change with it. The alloy stays the same. The duty does not.
TL;DR for buyers in a hurry304 is 18% chromium / 8% nickel — but check which standard your supplier is quoting to. EN 1.4301 permits chromium down to 17.5%, ASTM A240 requires 18.0 minimum.Chlorides, not temperature, define where 304 stops working. Its PREN is about 18–20; 316 is 24–26.Dry pet food lines: 304 is usually fine. Wet and canned pet food lines: specify 316L from the first material-contact surface. Salt is the variable that separates the two.A conveyor that drains outlasts a better alloy that holds water. The four places corrosion starts are all places where liquid sits.Before you ask for a quote, describe the duty — product, moisture and salt content, temperature, cleaning chemicals, peak throughput. Missing details here cause more cost than any material decision.
Contents
1. What Is 304 Stainless Steel?
2. Chemical Composition Across Standards
3. Variants and Mechanical Properties
4. Key Performance Characteristics
5. 304 vs 316 vs 201
6. Applications in Food Processing
7. Pet Food Equipment: The Salt Problem
8. Grade Selection Matrix for Pet Food Lines
9. What to Tell Your Supplier Before You Ask for a Quote
10. Procurement Checklist
11. When 304 Fails: Five Common Patterns
12. Frequently Asked Questions
13. Conveyor Systems: Where Material Choice Meets Design
14. References
1. What Is 304 Stainless Steel?
304 stainless steel is an austenitic grade built around roughly 18 percent chromium and 8 percent nickel, which is why it is still widely called 18/8 stainless steel. The chromium provides corrosion resistance, the nickel stabilizes the austenitic structure, and small amounts of carbon, manganese, silicon, and sometimes nitrogen complete the balance. Because the alloy is austenitic, it is non-magnetic in the annealed condition and stays tough even at cryogenic temperatures. It cannot be hardened by heat treatment, so strength is developed through cold working instead.
For food and pet food equipment, that last property matters more than it sounds: freezer tunnels, cold storage conveyors, and frozen product lines all depend on an alloy that does not embrittle when it gets cold.
Why it resists rust
The reason this alloy resists rust is not that it is inert, but that it protects itself. When chromium meets oxygen, even the trace oxygen dissolved in air or water, it forms an extremely thin chromium oxide passive film on the surface. This film is self-healing: if it is scratched, it rebuilds within minutes as long as oxygen is available. Corrosion only becomes a practical problem when that film is destroyed faster than it can reform, which usually means chlorides, strong acids, or oxygen starvation inside a crevice.
Understanding the passive film explains nearly every practical rule in this article, from post-weld cleaning to the danger of carbon steel contamination. It also explains why 304 performs beautifully on a dry kibble line and disappointingly inside a wet pet food retort.
2. Chemical Composition Across Standards
Here is where purchasing actually gets difficult. The three major standards define "304" with slightly different limits, and those small differences are what a supplier can legally hide behind.
Element | ASTM A240 / UNS S30400 | EN 10088-2 / 1.4301 (X5CrNi18-10) | JIS G4304 / SUS304 |
Carbon (C) | ≤ 0.08 | ≤ 0.07 | ≤ 0.08 |
Chromium (Cr) | 18.0 – 20.0 | 17.5 – 19.5 | 18.0 – 20.0 |
Nickel (Ni) | 8.0 – 10.5 | 8.0 – 10.5 | 8.0 – 10.5 |
Manganese (Mn) | ≤ 2.00 | ≤ 2.00 | ≤ 2.00 |
Silicon (Si) | ≤ 0.75 | ≤ 1.00 | ≤ 1.00 |
Phosphorus (P) | ≤ 0.045 | ≤ 0.045 | ≤ 0.045 |
Sulfur (S) | ≤ 0.030 | ≤ 0.030 | ≤ 0.030 |
Nitrogen (N) | ≤ 0.10 | ≤ 0.11 | — |
Iron (Fe) | Balance | Balance | Balance |
Values in weight percent. Always verify against the current revision of the standard you are purchasing to.
Two things matter in that table. First, EN 1.4301 permits chromium down to 17.5 percent, while ASTM requires 18.0 minimum. Second, EN sets a tighter carbon ceiling of 0.07. A coil supplied to EN 1.4301 can therefore be marginally lower in chromium than one supplied to ASTM A240 and still be fully compliant.
For most equipment this gap is irrelevant. For a welded assembly that will see sensitizing temperatures, or for a part going into a chloride-bearing process — which describes a great deal of pet food equipment — it is worth knowing which standard your supplier is quoting against.
3. Variants and Mechanical Properties
Variant | UNS | Carbon | Why it exists |
304 | S30400 | ≤ 0.08 | General purpose default |
304L | S30403 | ≤ 0.03 | Welded parts; resists sensitization without post-weld anneal |
304H | S30409 | 0.04 – 0.10 | Elevated-temperature service; higher creep strength |
304N | S30451 | ≤ 0.08 + N | Nitrogen added for higher strength |
Dual-grade 304/304L is common and usually the safest purchase for welded fabrications: it meets the 304L carbon limit while carrying 304's mechanical properties. In practice, most sanitary food equipment is built from dual-grade material even when the drawing simply says "304."
Typical values for annealed plate per ASTM A240:
Property | Value |
Tensile strength, min | 515 MPa (75 ksi) |
Yield strength (0.2%), min | 205 MPa (30 ksi) |
Elongation in 50 mm, min | 40% |
Hardness, max | 92 HRB / 201 HB |
Density | 8.00 g/cm³ (0.289 lb/in³) |
Melting range | 1400 – 1450 °C |
Modulus of elasticity | 193 GPa (28 × 10⁶ psi) |
Thermal conductivity at 100 °C | 16.2 W/m·K |
Thermal expansion, 0–100 °C | 17.2 × 10⁻⁶ /°C |
Electrical resistivity at 20 °C | 0.72 μΩ·m |
Magnetic permeability (annealed) | ≤ 1.02, effectively non-magnetic |
One caution on magnetism: cold work induces martensite, so drawn wire, heavily formed corners, and cut edges can show a weak magnetic response even on genuine 304. Magnetism tells you how a piece was worked, not what grade it is — and it is not a guide to quality either way.
4. Key Performance Characteristics
Corrosion envelope
In everyday industrial settings, this grade offers a dependable level of corrosion resistance. It handles indoor atmospheres, fresh water, mild food and beverage contact, and many dilute organic chemicals without visible attack. Oxidation resistance is good in continuous service up to about 870 °C and slightly higher intermittently, although scaling and sigma phase formation limit long exposures at that temperature. Below freezing the alloy remains ductile, which matters for cold storage conveyors and frozen product handling.
The practical envelope, however, is defined by chlorides rather than by temperature. A few hundred parts per million of chloride in a warm, stagnant environment can do more damage than a far harsher but flowing chemical stream.
A useful rough benchmark is the pitting resistance equivalent number, PREN = %Cr + 3.3 × %Mo + 16 × %N. With no molybdenum, 304 lands around 18–20. Compare that to 316 at roughly 24–26. The gap looks small on paper and is decisive in the field.
Fabrication behavior
Formability is a large part of why this grade is so widely used in sanitary equipment: it deep draws, bends, rolls, and stretches well, with elongation high enough to tolerate aggressive forming. It work hardens quickly, so forming loads rise with each pass and complex parts may need intermediate annealing.
Where 304 reaches its limits
- Chloride pitting
- Crevice corrosion
- Stress corrosion cracking
- Sensitization
In any of these situations, escalating to 316L is usually cheaper than repairing a failed installation.
5. 304 vs 316 vs 201
304 vs 316
The most common grade question in food and pet food equipment is whether standard 304 is enough or whether 316L is required. The difference comes down to molybdenum: 316 adds roughly 2 to 3 percent, which substantially improves resistance to chlorides and to reducing acids.
304 | 316L |
|
Chromium | 18.0 – 20.0 | 16.0 – 18.0 |
Nickel | 8.0 – 10.5 | 10.0 – 14.0 |
Molybdenum | — | 2.0 – 3.0 |
Carbon | ≤ 0.08 | ≤ 0.03 |
PREN (approx.) | 18 – 20 | 24 – 26 |
Relative material cost | Baseline | Typically 20–40% higher |
Best fit | Dry product, low-salt, ambient | Salt-bearing, retort, chlorinated sanitizers |
316L is specified far more often than 316 in food equipment, simply because the low carbon version survives welding without post-weld heat treatment.
For a machine housing in a dry ingredient area, the molybdenum is largely wasted money. For a tank holding salted meat emulsion, or a component washed daily with hypochlorite sanitizer, it is often the difference between a five-year life and a twenty-year life. The correct answer always depends on the specific chemistry and cleaning regime, not on a general preference for the more expensive grade.
Where 201 fits
Grade 201 replaces much of the nickel with manganese and nitrogen, sometimes with only 1 to 5 percent nickel remaining, which lowers raw material cost noticeably. It can look identical in a polished or brushed finish, so substitution is very difficult to spot once the material is in a finished frame. Corrosion resistance is lower, work hardening is stronger, and performance in humid or coastal conditions is less predictable.
In food and pet food plants, 201 has no legitimate place in product-contact surfaces or in washdown areas. Plants operate wet, warm, and chemically aggressive by design — exactly the conditions where 201 performs worst. It may appear in decorative trim, signage, or dry office-area fixtures. Write the exclusion into your specification explicitly.
6. Applications in Food Processing
Food processing is the largest single home for 304 stainless steel. Mixing tanks, work tables, conveyors, filling heads, and hood canopies are routinely built from it because it cleans well, tolerates the mild acids found in food, and does not impart taste or color. Sanitary piping and fittings use the alloy in both welded and clamp-style configurations, and dairy and brewery equipment relies on it for resistance to cleaning-in-place chemistry.
Where it works well:
- Dry ingredient handling
- Dairy
- Brewing and beverages
- Bakery and confectionery
- Fresh produce washing
Where it starts to fail:
- Pickled, cured, and salted products
- Sauce and condiment lines
- Seafood processing
- Any line cleaned with hypochlorite
That last point deserves emphasis. Many processors select the correct grade for the product, then destroy it with the cleaning regime. A 200–500 ppm hypochlorite solution at 50 °C, left to dry in a crevice overnight, will pit 304 regardless of how carefully the product chemistry was evaluated.
7. Pet Food Equipment: The Salt Problem
Pet food is not simply "food processing with different packaging." Three characteristics of pet food formulations make the corrosion environment measurably harsher than much of human food processing, and equipment specifiers who carry human-food assumptions across often get this wrong.
1. Salt content is substantially higher
Sodium chloride is added to pet food for palatability, as a preservative, and to bind moisture. Wet pet food formulations commonly run 0.5–1.5 percent sodium chloride, and some meat-heavy recipes exceed this. Many human food categories sit far below that range.
While 0.5–1.5 percent sounds trivial, it translates to thousands of parts per million of chloride in the aqueous phase — precisely the regime where 304 loses its passive film and 316L holds it.
2. Raw materials carry chloride in themselves
Pet food formulations rely heavily on meat meals, meat and bone meal, poultry by-product meal, and fish meal. Fish meal in particular carries significant chloride. Marine-derived ingredients are among the most aggressive inputs a stainless tank will ever see, and they are routine in pet food, not exceptional.
High-fat formulations compound the issue: rendered fats and surface-applied oils oxidize over time into organic acids, lowering local pH and attacking the passive film from a second direction.
3. Wet lines run hot
Wet pet food — canned, pouched, or in trays — is retorted at approximately 121 °C under pressure. Combine elevated temperature, chloride concentration, and residual fabrication stress, and you have the classic triad for chloride stress corrosion cracking in 304. That failure mode gives no visible warning before it happens.
What this means for specification
The dividing line in pet food equipment is not the product category, it is moisture plus salt plus temperature:
- Dry kibble lines304 is appropriate for the great majority of this equipment.
- Wet and canned lines316L is the usual specification from the first product-contact surface.
- Semi-moist lines
Two areas deserve special attention because they are frequently mis-specified in both directions:
Oil coating systems. Dry kibble receives surface fat application, sometimes at 5–15 percent by weight. The oil itself is not corrosive at ambient temperature, so 304 is acceptable for drums and spray systems. The risk arrives at cleaning time, when oxidized fat residues require alkaline or solvent cleaning. Specify a cleanable design with no dead legs rather than upgrading the alloy.
CIP and sanitizing systems. This is where the chloride load is often highest in the entire plant, regardless of whether the line is dry or wet. If your sanitation protocol uses chlorine-based sanitizers, the CIP set, return piping, and any vessel that holds sanitizing solution is normally 316L — even on a dry kibble line that is otherwise entirely 304.
8. Grade Selection Matrix for Pet Food Lines
Use this as a starting point, then validate against your actual formulation and sanitation protocol.
Equipment / Process stage | Conditions | Recommended grade |
Raw material intake, silos, dry conveyance | Dry, ambient, low chloride | 304 |
Grinding, pre-mixing | Dry, ambient | 304 |
Mixer, conditioner | Steam injection, moderate humidity | 304 (watch condensate chemistry) |
Extruder barrel and die | High temperature and pressure, steam | 304 housing; consult OEM for contact parts |
Dryer | Hot air, low moisture | 304 |
Oil coating drum, fat spray system | Ambient fat; aggressive cleaning | 304, cleanable design required |
Cooler | Ambient, dry | 304 |
Finished kibble storage and packing | Ambient, dry | 304 |
Fish meal and marine ingredient handling | High chloride | 316L |
Wet slurry blending, emulsifying tanks | High salt, high moisture | 316L |
Retort / sterilization at ~121 °C | Chloride + heat + stress | 316L |
Canning, pouch, and tray filling lines | Salted wet product | 316L |
CIP set and return piping | Cleaning and sanitizing chemicals | 316L if chlorine-based |
Equipment frames, enclosures, guards | No product contact | 304 |
The pattern is clear: everything dry and ambient is 304; everything wet, salted, hot, or exposed to chlorinated sanitizer is 316L.
9. What to Tell Your Supplier Before You Ask for a Quote
The most expensive problems in custom equipment are rarely material failures. They are specification gaps — a detail nobody mentioned at the quotation stage, discovered after the machine is standing on your floor. A conveyor that surges at peak load, a transfer point that cracks more kibble than the line can tolerate, a frame that will not fit through the door it was built for: all of these trace back to the same root cause, and none of them are solved by choosing a better steel grade.
This section is the checklist we work from, and it is worth filling in before you send an enquiry to anyone.
What to describe | The details that matter | What it decides in the design |
The product | Physical form (powder, pellet, chunk, paste, liquid), bulk density, particle size range, moisture, fat content, salt content , temperature at loading, stickiness, abrasiveness, friability | Belt surface and width, side wall height, steel grade on contact surfaces, whether material slides or sticks |
Throughput | Peak rate as well as average , in kg/h or units/min, continuous or batch, whether the infeed arrives steady or in surges | Motor sizing, belt speed, whether the conveyor clears itself at peak load |
Cleaning regime | Dry wipe, low-pressure wash, foam, or CIP; chemical type and concentration; temperature; frequency; whether chlorine-based | Material by zone, surface finish, weld treatment, drainage design, motor enclosure rating |
Environment | Indoor or outdoor, ambient temperature range, humidity, coastal or inland, steam present, dust or explosion requirements | Frame material, enclosure rating, whether condensation will form on cold surfaces |
Line interface | Upstream and downstream equipment, infeed and discharge heights, available floor space, turns and inclines, utilities available, and the dimensions of the opening the machine must pass through | Overall geometry, transfer design, and whether the machine can be assembled on site at all |
Constraints | Maintenance skill level, existing equipment standards, spare parts policy, noise limits, drainage expectations, future capacity plans | Automation level, component brands, access for cleaning |
Six details that cost the most when they are missing
Peak throughput, not average throughput. A conveyor sized to the average rate runs beautifully for most of the shift and backs up exactly when the line matters most. Operators remember the backup, not the average. State both. If the product arrives in surges from an upstream batch process, say so — a steady stream and a pulsed one of the same hourly average need very different belt loading.
Transfer drop height. Every transfer point produces some breakage, and the rate climbs steeply with drop height. Dry pet food kibble is brittle, and two percent lost at each of four transfers is eight percent of your product on the floor instead of in the bag. This is a geometry decision made at design time, not something adjustable once the steel is cut.
Incline angle against your actual product. Published incline limits assume a generic dry bulk material. Fat-coated kibble, sticky emulsions, and wet powders behave differently, and a belt that handles them at 20 degrees may slide at 15. The table has never met your product. Where a line has to climb, the angle is worth deriving from that product rather than from a published number.
Whether the product arrives hot and the room is cold. A warm product on a conveyor in a chilled room produces condensation on the frame and underside of the belt. That condensate then carries whatever is in the air — in a pet food plant, usually salt-laden dust. It is the quietest route to corrosion on a line that was specified correctly: the grade was never wrong, the condensate simply carried the chloride to it. Two temperature readings predict the whole thing.
Salt and moisture, stated as numbers. "Meat slurry" is not a specification. "Meat slurry at 62 percent moisture, 1.2 percent sodium chloride, ambient to 45 °C" is, and it is the difference between a line built from 304 and one built from 316L where it counts.
The dimensions of the doorway. This one sounds like a joke and is not. Custom equipment is built to the process, not to a shipping container, and a frame that will not clear the doorway is not a design problem, a material problem, or a supplier problem. It is a tape measure problem, discovered on delivery day with the truck still outside. Measure the door, the corridor, and any lift before the design is frozen.
Why it has to happen before the quote
A change made on a drawing costs the drawing. The same change made after fabrication costs the steel. The same change made after installation costs the steel, the downtime, and the commissioning visit. Those three numbers are not close to each other. This is not a controversial idea; it is simply an expensive one, and the only thing separating them is when the information surfaced.
Where the duty is described well, the design tends to reflect it. Where it is not, a machine gets built to assumptions — and assumptions usually surface on the floor rather than on the drawing.
10. Procurement Checklist
Twelve checks before signing a purchase order.
- Name the standard and revision year
- Specify 304, 304L, or dual-grade material
- State the finish surface roughness target
- Require measured chemistry values
- Require the batch number
- Set an explicit no-substitution clause
- For welded parts, confirm carbon ≤ 0.03
- State how the machine is to drain and dry after washing
- Specify packaging
- State the service environment
- Confirm thickness tolerance
- Attach the duty description to the order
Items 4, 6, and 7 catch the large majority of material quality problems. Items 10 and 12 are the ones most often skipped, and the most useful when something goes wrong.
11. When 304 Fails: Five Common Patterns
The following are failure patterns that recur across equipment in service. They are drawn from general field experience rather than any single facility, and are worth comparing against your own maintenance records — replacing this section with your own documented cases, including service hours and failure dates, is the single strongest credibility signal you can add.
The stagnant rinse line. A plant installed 304 piping with a low section that drained incompletely. Chlorinated rinse water sat in the low point overnight. Pitting appeared within months at the waterline, not along the pipe run — the attack followed stagnation, not flow. Fix: eliminate the dead leg, or move to 316L.
The salted slurry tank. A wet pet food blending vessel specified as 304 because "the plant is stainless throughout." Salted meat emulsion at ambient temperature produced pitting at the liquid line within a year. The product, not the equipment, was the problem. Fix: 316L for all salted wet contact surfaces.
The retort tray. 304 racking inside a 121 °C retort developed cracking after extended service. Heat, chloride, and residual fabrication stress together produced stress corrosion cracking with no visible warning. Fix: 316L racking, and stress-relieve where design permits.
The contaminated bench. A shop fabricated stainless components on a bench previously used for carbon steel, using shared wire brushes. Rust spots bloomed across finished parts within days of delivery to a humid site. The stainless was correct; the handling was not. Fix: dedicated stainless tooling and work area.
The sanitizer that ate the tank. A dairy specified 304 correctly for its product, then adopted a hypochlorite sanitizing protocol at elevated temperature. Pitting appeared across the upper walls where solution dried rather than drained. Fix: switch to peracetic acid or quat-based sanitizer, or move to 316L.
Four of these five would have been prevented by a grade change or a process change costing less than the cleanup.
12. Frequently Asked Questions
Is 304 stainless steel safe for food contact? Yes, and it is the most common food-contact stainless steel in the world. It is used for tanks, conveyors, utensils, and sanitary piping. Confirm the surface finish and roughness for cleanability.
Is 304 acceptable for pet food equipment? On dry kibble lines, yes — 304 is the standard. On wet, canned, or retorted pet food lines, no: specify 316L for product-contact surfaces because of salt content and retort temperature.
Why does pet food corrode stainless faster than human food? Higher sodium chloride levels, chloride-bearing raw materials such as fish meal and meat meals, and high-temperature retorting. Each raises the chloride load on the passive film.
Is 304 magnetic? In the annealed condition, no. Cold working induces martensite, so formed corners, drawn wire, and cut edges may show weak attraction. Magnetism tells you how the material was worked, not what grade it is.
What is the difference between 304 and 18/8? Nothing, in practical terms. 18/8 refers to the approximate 18 percent chromium and 8 percent nickel content. The term is informal and appears mostly on consumer goods.
Can 304 rust? Yes. It resists rust rather than being immune. Chlorides, low oxygen, and iron contamination all defeat the passive film.
Should I always upgrade to 316L? No. For dry product, freshwater, or mild food-contact service, 316L adds cost with little benefit. Upgrade when salt, marine exposure, retort temperatures, or chlorine sanitizers are present.
What does 304L mean, and when do I need it? The L means low carbon, maximum 0.03 percent. It resists sensitization during welding. Use it for any welded part that will not receive a post-weld solution anneal. Most sanitary equipment uses dual-grade 304/304L automatically.
How do I make sure I am not sold 201 instead of 304? Not by looking at it — the two are indistinguishable in a polished finish, which is exactly why silent substitution happens. The protection is commercial rather than technical: name the grade and the standard on the order, add an explicit no-substitution clause, and buy from a supplier whose name depends on you coming back. Once 201 is welded into a frame, there is no cheap remedy.
What surface finish should I specify for food contact? 2B is the industrial default and cleans well. Specify a roughness target, commonly Ra ≤ 0.8 μm, and hold product-contact welds to the same standard.
13. Conveyor Systems: Where Material Choice Meets Design
Everything above applies to equipment generally. Conveyors deserve their own note, because they are the one category of equipment where the frame, the product-contact surface, and the cleaning regime routinely demand different grades — and where a single-grade specification either wastes money or fails early.
Think in zones, not in machines
The most common specification error in conveyor procurement is naming one grade for the whole machine. Two zones behave completely differently:
Zone | Conditions | Typical grade |
Frame, legs, supports, side guards | No product contact; exposed to washdown and ambient air | 304 |
Drive guards, motor covers, electrical enclosures | No contact; condensation risk inside | 304 |
Belt or chain contact surface, slider bed | Direct product contact; abrasion | Depends on product — 304 dry, 316L wet/salted |
Product guides, side rails, transfer plates | Contact plus impact | Matches contact surface |
Chutes, hoppers, discharge spouts | Contact plus accumulation | 316L for salted or wet product |
Washdown and CIP zones | Cleaning chemicals, highest chloride load | 316L if chlorine-based |
Building the frame from 304 and the contact surfaces from 316L is standard practice in well-specified equipment. It costs marginally more than all-304 and dramatically less than all-316L, and it puts the alloy where the corrosion risk actually is. This is the single most useful thing to get right on a custom specification.
Where conveyors actually corrode
Four locations account for most conveyor corrosion complaints, and none of them is the flat sheet everyone specifies:
- Hinge and joint crevices
- The underside of slider beds
- Welded joints at frame intersections
- The interior of motor and drive guards
Notice the pattern: every one is a place where liquid sits rather than drains. When we review a design, drainage gets more attention than alloy selection, because a conveyor that drains completely in 304 outlasts one that pools in 316L.
Hygienic design points that matter more than grade
- Horizontal ledges and hollow sections.
- Fasteners in the product zone.
- Enclosed frames.
- Finish alongside grade.
- Belt material as a separate decision.
Four conveyor details that decide whether a line runs
The checklist in Section 9 covers the ground. These four are specific to conveyors, and they are the ones most often missing from an enquiry:
- Belt surface against the actual product.
- Incline derived from your product, not from a table.
- Peak throughput, and whether the infeed surges.
- Transfer drop height at every hand-off point.
These four tend to settle the material question on their own.
About us. Shanghai Xisheng Taolan Intelligent Equipment Co., Ltd. builds custom conveyor systems for food and pet food producers. We are a research-and-manufacture operation, so the people who design a line are the people who build it, and material decisions get made zone by zone, because a dry section and a washdown section are not the same problem. If you are planning a new line, or replacing a section that never quite worked, the duty list above is where we start too — which is why we ask about salt content before we ask about length.Contact: Orange Zhou, orange@xstlconveyor.com
14. References
- ASTM A240/A240M — Chromium and Chromium-Nickel Stainless Steel Plate, Sheet, and Strip
- ASTM A480/A480M — General Requirements for Flat-Rolled Stainless and Heat-Resisting Steel
- EN 10088-2 — Stainless steels: Technical delivery conditions for sheet/plate and strip (1.4301)
- JIS G4304 — Hot-rolled stainless steel plate, sheet and strip (SUS304)
- ISO 15510 — Stainless steels: Chemical composition
- 3-A Sanitary Standards — sanitary design criteria for food processing equipment
- EHEDG — European Hygienic Engineering & Design Group guidelines
Verify all values against the current revision of the governing standard before placing an order. Composition limits and mechanical property minimums are updated periodically. This article is informational and does not replace a corrosion evaluation by a qualified materials engineer for your specific process.
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