Surgical stainless steel Surgical stainless steel Surgical stainless steel is a grade of stainless steel used in biomedical applications. The most common "surgical steels" are austenitic 316 stainless and martensitic 440 and 420 stainless steels. There is no formal definition on what constitutes a "surgical stainless steel", so product manufacturers and distributors apply the term to refer to any grade of corrosion resistant steel. 316 stainless steel, also referred to as marine grade stainless steel, is a chromium, nickel, molybdenum alloy of steel that exhibits relatively good strength and corrosion resistance. Along with the titanium alloy Ti6Al4V, 316 stainless is a common choice
Stainless steel about 0.4%) are mostly used for cutting tools: Cutlery, Razor blade steel, Blender blades, etc. Replacing some of the Carbon in martensitic stainless steels by Nitrogen is a fairly recent development. The limited solubility of Nitrogen has been increased by the PESR process (Pressure Electroslag Refining) in which melting is carried out under a high nitrogen pressure. Up to 0.4% N contents have been achieved leading to higher hardness/strength and higher corrosion resistance. As the PESR is expensive, lower but significant N contents have been achieved using the standard AOD process. They are magnetic. They are not as corrosion resistant