Stainless Steel Surfaces

A Guide to Alloys, Finishes, Fabrication and Maintenance in Architecture and Art

L. William Zahner

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781119541585
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture Methods & Materials

A full-color guide for architects and design professionals to the selection and application of stainless steel

Stainless Steel Surfaces offers an authoritative and comprehensive guide to the application of stainless steel to create surfaces for building exteriors, interiors, and art finishes. The first volume in Zahner's Architectural Metals Series, the book is a visual, full-color book filled with the information needed to ensure proper maintenance of stainless steel and suggestions for fabrication techniques. The author—a noted expert in the field—covers a range of topics including the history of the metal, choosing the right alloy, information on a variety of surface and chemical finishes, and facts on corrosion resistance.

Stainless Steel Surfaces is filled with illustrative case studies that offer strategies for designing and executing successful projects using stainless steel. All the books in the Zahner's Architectural Metals Series offer in-depth coverage of today's most commonly used metals in architecture and art. This important book:

• Contains a comprehensive guide to the use and maintenance of stainless steel surfaces in architecture and art

• Features full-color images of a range of stainless steel finishes, colors, textures, and forms

• Presents case studies with performance data that feature strategies on how to design and execute successful projects using stainless steel

• Offers methods to address corrosion, before and after it occurs

• Discusses the environmental impact of stainless steel from the creation process through application

• Explains the significance of the different alloys and the forms available to the designer

• Discusses what to expect when using stainless steel in various exposures

Architecture professionals, metal fabricators, developers, architecture students and instructors, designers, and artists working with metals, Stainless Steel Surfaces offers a logical framework for the selection and application of stainless steel in all aspects of architecture.

CHAPTER 1
Introduction to Stainless Steel

All that glitters is not gold.

William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

STAINLESS STEEL

Few metals can compete with the versatility of stainless steel. Stainless steel, in the hands of a knowledgeable fabricator, offers infinite variations of finishes and textures that can be mixed, layered, etched, and embossed to create a surface appearance and reflectivity no other materials can match. Add to this the strength, hardness, and corrosion resistance stainless steel offers and you have a very special material of design.

Stainless steel is relatively new as far as being used in art and architecture. It does not have the long history of copper and bronze. It was not known at the time of Napoleon, when zinc became the metal of Paris architecture. Even aluminum was in use before stainless steel came into prominence. Its discovery and subsequent utility was not known prior to the twentieth century, and its humble start was its use in special nonrusting cutlery.

Today, stainless steel is synonymous with the modern age. Art conservationists consider it one of the so‐called modern metals. Stainless steel's jewel‐like luster adorns building facades and roofs on many major structures around the world. As a sculptural material, stainless steel is accepted and used by some of the most talented artists of our time.

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Few metals can compete with the versatility of stainless steel.

Stainless steel, in the hands of a knowledgeable fabricator, offers infinite variations of finishes and textures that can be mixed, layered, etched, and embossed to create a surface appearance and reflectivity no other material can match.

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Perhaps the most compelling reason to consider using stainless steel to visually express an art form or adorn a building surface is the luster of the metal. The luster of stainless steel is rich and intense. Unlike the warmth attributed to silver and pewter, stainless steel conveys a sense of modern achievement as a material that can stand the test of time.

The color is attributed to the chromium in the alloy. Chromium gives stainless steel a bluish tone. Some would consider this tone cold and sterile, but when stainless steel is given a finishing texture of minute scratches or tiny indented glass bead–blasted craters, the metal captures the light and sends it back to us in ways that no other material can.

Stainless steel is one of the few metals that is expected to stand against nature and not change in perceivable ways. Stainless steel is homogeneous in its makeup. Scratch it, cut it, or pierce it, and you have the same stainless steel throughout. It does not require other metals to protect it, and stainless steel does not need paint to seal its surface from the rigors of the environment.

Stainless steel is a noble metal in its passive state. By passive state we mean a nonreacting and stable state. The passive state is one stainless steel resides in for most applications insofar as art and architecture are considered. Because of this passive state, bolts and fasteners made from stainless steel support many steel and aluminum structures. Even copper roofs can be held down with stainless steel clips without fear of galvanic reaction. Like titanium, another metal even more recently introduced to the cladding scene, thin skins of stainless steel can enclose structures and be expected to last hundreds of years with little maintenance to aid that which nature provides.

Stainless steel reflects around 60% of the visible light spectrum. It absorbs the shorter wavelengths of the visible spectrum, which is the blue end. One would think that if it absorbs more of the blue spectrum, then the color reflected would be reddish, but that is not so. Stainless steel has a markedly bluish tint. With metals, the greater the absorption, the greater the reflection. When light strikes a metal surface it is intensely absorbed to a level of a few hundred atoms. These atoms react to the light by exciting the electrons on the surface. Light is an electromagnetic wave, so the electrons in the surface atoms of the metal develop alternating currents, which release energy in the form of light and create a strong reflection of the absorbed wavelength. Stainless steel absorbs more of the blu...