Stainless steel surface coatings has also influenced its use in commercial kitchens and food processing plants. Stainless steels do not suffer uniform corrosion, like carbon steel, when exposed to wet environments. Unprotected carbon steel rusts readily when exposed to the combination of air and moisture. The resulting iron oxide surface layer (the rust) is porous and fragile. Since iron oxide occupies a larger volume than the original steel this layer expands and tends to flake and fall away exposing the underlying steel to further attack. In comparison, stainless steels contain sufficient chromium to undergo passivation, spontaneously forming a microscopically thin inert surface
Stainless steel both the Petronas Twin Towers and the Jin Mao Building, two of the world's tallest skyscrapers. The Parliament House of Australia in Canberra has a stainless steel flagpole weighing over . The aeration building in the Edmonton Composting Facility, the size of 14 hockey rinks, is the largest stainless steel building in North America. La Geode in Paris is a nearly spherical building. The dome is composed of 6433 polished stainless steel equilateral triangles that form the sphere that reflects the sky. Stainless steel is quite frequently used for pedestrian and for road bridges. Product forms are tubes (Helix bridge),