SAE 304 stainless steel SAE 304 stainless steel SAE 304 stainless steel is the most common stainless steel. The steel contains both chromium (between 18–20%) and nickel (between 8–10.5%) metals as the main non-iron constituents. It is an austenitic stainless steel. It is less electrically and thermally conductive than carbon steel and is essentially non-magnetic. It has a higher corrosion resistance than regular steel and is widely used because of the ease in which it is formed into various shapes. The composition was developed by W. H. Hatfield at Firth-Vickers in 1924 and was marketed under the trade name “Staybrite 18/8”. It is specified
Stainless steel Becket were industrializing ferritic stainless steel. In 1912, Elwood Haynes applied for a US patent on a martensitic stainless steel alloy, which was not granted until 1919. In 1912, Harry Brearley of the Brown-Firth research laboratory in Sheffield, England, while seeking a corrosion-resistant alloy for gun barrels, discovered and subsequently industrialized a martensitic stainless steel alloy. The discovery was announced two years later in a January 1915 newspaper article in "The New York Times". The metal was later marketed under the "Staybrite" brand by Firth Vickers in England and was used for the new entrance canopy for the Savoy Hotel