Why is some stainless steel magnetic and other stainless steel is not magnetic?
In: Chemistry
Think of stainless steel like pasta. You have many different types of pasta and they serve different purposes. Now for stainless steel (an alloy), you have ‘family’ subsets and within those different families you have further ‘grade’ subsets. The four families of stainless steel are:
**Austenitic** Stainless Steel
Ferritic Stainless Steel
Duplex Stainless Steel
Martensitic & Precipitation Hardening Stainless Steel
The bolded family is easily the most popularly used family of stainless steel. Grades within that family that you might hear thrown around are **316, 304, 316L, and 304L.** If you have something that is stainless steel it’s like a 95% chance it’s one of these.
The austenitic family has *almost* no magnetic response, the other families do. Austenitic steel has a “face centered” structure. It’s the geometry of this face-centered structure that makes electron alignment difficult. The reason why this structure happens during cooling is probably beyond an ELI5.
[Steel Crystal Structure](https://pipingtech.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/3-major-types-of-Stainless-Steel-Austenitic-Ferritic-and-Martensitic.jpg)
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