What Challenges Arise When Cutting 304 Stainless Steel Sheet?

2025-12-16 0 Leave me a message

304 Stainless Steel Sheet is widely used for its excellent performance and has become a popular material in the market. Today, I will analyze the problems that are prone to occur when cutting 304 Stainless Steel Sheet.

1. The high strength of stainless steel makes it prone to deformation. During the machining and cutting process of stainless steel, due to its certain elongation rate—especially for austenitic stainless steels—significant plastic deformation occurs, which poses some difficulty for cutting operations. Furthermore, the inherent high strength of stainless steel increases the bidirectional resistance during cutting, thereby intensifying the cutting force.

2. High cutting temperatures are generated for stainless steel. The cutting process produces a substantial amount of heat. However, stainless steel materials have relatively poor thermal conductivity. Consequently, the heat concentrates entirely in the cutting zone and on the blade, making it difficult to dissipate.

3. Cutting difficulty is significant. Stainless steel is a hard material with good plasticity and high toughness. However, during processing, chips are difficult to break and tend to adhere easily during cutting, leading to extrusion against the surface of the stainless steel and excessive wear on the cutting tool (This is because tool wear causes pits on the tool face, forming minor spalling and notches. Combined with the high hardness of carbides in stainless steel, direct contact and friction with the tool during cutting cause tool abrasion, along with work hardening phenomena, all of which exacerbate tool wear). This, in turn, degrades the quality of the machined stainless steel surface.

4. Stainless steel is prone to expansion. A large amount of heat is generated during the cutting and machining process, leading to thermal expansion of the stainless steel and increasing the difficulty of the cutting operation.