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Conversion from old British and SAE to modern steel standards

opscimc

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Jan 24, 2012
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I spent quite a while with Google without finding what I needed before composing this post. I would be grateful if someone could point me to an on-line source that provides a table of modern U.S. steel equivalents of old British (e.g. EN36, EN54, etc.) and SAE standards (e.g. 1320, 3115, etc.). Thanks very much in advance.
 
Not much change in the SAE numbers which are still used, but many have been discontinued and have no "equivalent", such as your 3115 - the whole section of Nickel Chromium steels simply not being made any more except on special order in "mill" quantities. I expect 1320, a Manganese steel, is in the same boat.
 
Not much change in the SAE numbers which are still used, but many have been discontinued and have no "equivalent", such as your 3115 - the whole section of Nickel Chromium steels simply not being made any more except on special order in "mill" quantities. I expect 1320, a Manganese steel, is in the same boat.
Thanks very much for your response. However, I picked the various numbers I used in my post at random from old SAE and British lists just to make clear the type of information I was looking for. Those aren't necessarily the ones I would be interested in. I'm hoping to be pointed to a general equivalence table, which will be of great help when I then start searching for the nearest, still-made, steel that has similar or better properties than something used in the past to fabricate certain old parts.
 
There is no such general equivalence table to my knowledge. A good reason for this is that the 3115, for an example, could conceivably be used in dozens differing applications from annealed to fully carburized and hardened. Such a table would either be way too narrow in scope or very voluminous. The former is useless and the latter impractical.

A work around is to know the chemistry and properties of the "old" and find something "new" that is better or equal. Such "old" info is readily available (for SAE) in such publications as the SAE Handbook which were published annually I think. I have the '38 and '43 editions.
 
I spent quite a while with Google without finding what I needed before composing this post. I would be grateful if someone could point me to an on-line source that provides a table of modern U.S. steel equivalents of old British (e.g. EN36, EN54, etc.) and SAE standards (e.g. 1320, 3115, etc.). Thanks very much in advance.

opsscimc,
for starters, not inexpensive.

http://www.astm.org/BOOKSTORE/PUBS/DS67C.htm

http://www.astm.org/BOOKSTORE/PUBS/DS70.htm

http://www.astm.org/BOOKSTORE/PUBS/PSTSTEEL.htm


Cheers,

 
for starters, not inexpensive...
Are you suggesting I look for information in actual books? From a library? What a 20th century concept. But, an excellent suggestion. The 2nd book you listed seems particularly promising, so I now have it on order from interlibrary loan. Thanks very much for your post.
 
I think you are going to be disappointed. The problem is the old specs, new specs, and euro specs all have varing ranges of impurities and alloying elements. Often similar material properties are obtained but with different elements added. So its not possible to do a one for one cross reference table or chart. You will be forced to read up on the properties of the old spec material and then find a new spec material with similar properties which may have been reached with entirely different chemistry. Whether or not that different chemistry matters in your application will be something you'll have to judge.

Alan
 
The SAE and ASTM standards are available through Inter-Library Loan in the USA, expensive if you buy them. I checked on the British Standard documents some years ago and nearly infarcted after doing a conversion from $USD to British pounds.

Something like "EN36" makes sense even if I don't know what the actual alloy is; old British books that talk about "20 ton steel" drive me foaming mad...
 
will be forced to read up on the properties of the old spec material and then find a new spec material with similar properties which may have been reached with entirely different chemistry. Whether or not that different chemistry matters in your application will be something you'll have to judge.
Something like "EN36" makes sense even if I don't know what the actual alloy is; old British books that talk about "20 ton steel" drive me foaming mad...
These quotes get to the heart of what I'm looking for. I don't care if the steel has Mn or Cr in it, I only care if it's 20 ton... Seriously, what I'm looking for are the appropriate steels to reproduce certain components of old British motorcycles, where in some cases the only information I can find is something like "20 ton" steel, but in other cases something more well-defined like EN16. The latter I know is a "55 ton" steel, further described as a manganese-molybdenum steel. So, since I can't order EN16, what looking for is a table that translates the old physical properties of EN16 (and others) to modern equivalents. It would be fine if the modern equivalent doesn't have Mn and Mo, but instead achieved its physical properties with, say Cr and Zr.

In the case of EN16, it was used to make fork spindles. For that purpose it has to be reasonably strong, but it can't be brittle. Not wanting to have a fork collapse under me when hitting a pothole means picking any old steel at random to make a spindle or axle wouldn't be a good idea. Knowing that EN16 works (i.e. is strong enough and resilient enough) means if a "translation chart" gave even a couple of possible replacements, having narrowed it down that much would make my job of reading up on the properties to pick the best replacement a lot easier. Certainly much easier than starting from scratch with a huge book of steel specifications to try to find one suitable for each application.
 
How about a single replacement? E4130. Available from annealed to Normalized (4130N) to heat treated to 125,000 PSI tensile (at the heat treat vendor) - which is somewhat better than "55 ton"

It has incidentally been successful in aircraft parts since about 1930

It only becomes "brittle" in some instances if it is TIG welded without proper post weld heat treat, but this would be true of similar strength alloys with the same carbon content.
 
How about a single replacement? E4130. Available from annealed to Normalized (4130N) to heat treated to 125,000 PSI tensile (at the heat treat vendor) - which is somewhat better than "55 ton"....
Thanks very much for this suggestion. A quick look at its specifications makes it appear to be very promising. Its weldability seems to be a major feature of it, which isn't important for the uses I have in mind. The fact it appears to be widely used is a real advantage, since that probably means it wouldn't be too hard to find supplies of it. Again, thanks very much for this suggestion.
 








 
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