Which steels were origianally designed to be used to cut and shape metals and other materials?- alloy steel- high carbon steel- carbide steel- tool steelthanks
Tool steels These were designed to be used as hardenable, dimensionally stable materials for cutting of metals. The alloying elements they contain (including tungsten, vanadium, niobium and molybdenum as well as chromium)are there to produce carbides (mainly) which are stable at dull-red heat. This cannot be achieved with high carbon steels, carbide steels or (normal) alloy steels which all lose their strength and hardness at metal cutting temperatures.
In your choices carbide steels are used for milling and drilling purposes and high speed steel are used in lathe operations. For shaping the tools, tool grinding machines are used and for initial sharing dyes are used.
Strength of metals is normally measured by the tensile strength as the main measure although this is not the only property as hardness is another big factor. Basically, iron is soft and steel is hard. Plain iron is stretchy and does not corrode quickly, whereas steel is much stiffer and corrodes more quickly. The tensile strength of cold worked iron is about half that of an average steel, likewise the hardness is about half that of steel too. Pure iron, which is rarely used, is even weaker and softer again and a bit more like softer materials like copper and aluminium. Where confusion comes in is that there is another iron - Cast Iron - which is totally different to both iron and steel. Cast iron is very hard and tough but incredibly brittle so its properties are very different.
