Stainless Steel

An unusual feature of annealed austenitic stainless steels is that the yield strength is a very low proportion of the tensile strength, typically only 40-45%. The comparable figure for a mild steel is about 65-70%. As indicated above a small amount of cold work greatly increases the yield (much more so than the tensile strength), so the yield also increases to a higher proportion of tensile. Only a few % of cold work will increase the yield by 200 or 300MPa, and in severely cold worked material like spring temper wire or strip, the yield is usually about 80-95% of the tensile strength.