The Complete Guide to Mild Steel Grades and Their Uses

Mild steel is a very popular type of steel that is used across various industries. It’s a highly versatile steel that can be manipulated and manufactured to create numerous structures and products. Mild steel offers a high-quality, precise finish that’s durable and lasting to withstand constant use. Due to this, the material is commonly used in construction, engineering and manufacturing to create sturdy supports and structures that can face harsher elements, withstand heavy-duty use and provide stability and longevity for your project. It can be used for a wide range of projects, fitting into any task you have to do, because you can easily fabricate it to create the shape you need. Plus, it comes in all different forms to suit your exact requirements, such as round, square and flat, allowing you to use it across numerous applications.

This material is very affordable to help you create structural frameworks and everyday products at a lower cost. However, mild steel comes in a variety of grades, which are all used for different applications and offer unique properties. You need the right grade for the particular job you have to do to gain a flawless result. Due to this, it’s essential to know the different mild steel grades, their characteristics and their uses to always ensure that you use the right type of mild steel for your project. Our guide helps you understand mild steel grades and their uses across various industries, so you can select the perfect material that meets your every need.

What is Mild Steel?

Before you can determine the best grades of mild steel for your project, you need to know what it is. Mild steel is a type of low-carbon steel that only contains a small amount of carbon, which is typically between 0.16% and 0.29%. This gives it good strength without making the steel brittle. The term mild comes from this because it’s milder than other steels and a little less tough, while still offering good strength. Due to the lower carbon content, this material is more malleable, ductile and easy to work with compared to higher carbon steels.

What Properties Does Mild Steel Have?

Mild steel has a wide range of unique properties that make it a popular material across many different industries. It offers great benefits for any project and can be used widely in various applications, allowing you to create virtually anything you want.

• Mild steel offers excellent machinability and can be cut, drilled and shaped into anything you need.
• The material can be welded easily to create a strong structure that combines mild steel and even other materials.
• It’s a lower-cost metal compared to other metals like alloy or stainless steel.
• Mild steel has unparalleled ductility, meaning that it can be bent or formed without breaking.
• It’s an extremely versatile metal that can be used for structural, mechanical and decorative applications.

What is Mild Steel Used For?

Many wonder what mild steel is used for. As it’s an extremely versatile material, many different industries work with the metal for a variety of applications. It offers good strength, easy machining capabilities and affordability. Due to this, the metal gets used for every project, big or small, from construction to simple everyday items.

The main uses of mild steel are:

• Manufacturing and Engineering: Mild steel is heavily used for these projects due to its excellent machinability properties. It can create strong and durable components that can be relied on, such as shafts, gears, nuts, bolts, screws and machine components.
• Pipes: This material is commonly used to create pipes and hollow sections. It can make durable yet cheap water and gas pipelines, structural tubing and scaffolding.
• Everyday Products: The metal can be used for everyday items like kitchen equipment, appliances, storage units and decorative items.
• Construction: One of the most common uses of mild steel is in construction. It can be used for structural beams, columns, reinforcement bars, frameworks and bridges.
• Automotive: This material can also be used for automotive parts due to its good strength and durability. It can make car body panels, frames, engine components and exhaust systems.

Types of Mild Steel

When it comes to mild steel, there are different types that it can come in, alongside the different grades of mild steel. This is important to know to ensure that you have the right type for the job to create a flawless, precise finish that lasts. The type is all dependent on how it’s processed and finished, affecting the surface finish, dimensional accuracy, strength and suitability for various applications. Some of the main types of mild steel are:

Hot Rolled Mild Steel

Hot rolled mild steel is made by heating the steel above its recrystallisation temperature. This is then rolled into a particular shape, which can cover angle, square box section, flat, circular hollow section, steel plate, round bar, Tee bar, rectangular box section and square bar. The heating process helps to form the steel easily into large sections, like plates, sheets and structural components.

The process creates a rougher surface finish with slightly rounded edges and corners. It also makes mild steel even more affordable to help you save money on your project. Whether you need hot rolled flat mild steel or mild steel in a particular shape, you can gain a quality finish that’s strong and durable for every application.

Cold-Finished Mild Steel

Cold-finished is another type of mild steel that is made by drawing hot rolled steel through dies at room temperature. This process helps to improve the surface finish and dimensional accuracy of mild steel, allowing it to be used for decorative applications and tasks that need to be more precise. It also gives the metal a tighter tolerance, precise dimensions, better strength and more consistency in shape and material.

Electronic Resistance Welded Steel (ERW)

Electronic resistance welded (ERW) mild steel is a common type that is used for a multitude of applications. It’s created by rolling the mild steel sheets into a cylindrical shape and then welding the seam through electrical resistance. This means that this type offers some unique shapes that can be used for specific applications, such as rectangular box section, ERW tube, square box section and oval tube.

The ERW process creates a consistent wall thickness and a smooth internal and external surface to suit many different projects. This type of mild steel also offers a strong welded seam and produces tubes and hollow sections for durable structures.

The Key Mild Steel Grades

There are many mild steel grades available that can all be used for a variety of applications. These offer something unique and can create different structures and products with a flawless finish. It’s important to understand the key grades of mild steel to help you choose the right one for the job.

Mild Carbon Steel Grades

There are a few essential mild carbon steel grades that can be used for various applications. These are:

• S235JR: This is a general-purpose structural steel that isn’t as strong as other mild steel grades. It can be used for simple structures that don’t need to withstand harsh conditions or repeated heavy-duty use.
• S275JR: This is a grade that offers medium strength and good weldability properties. It’s commonly available in rolled shapes, such as plates and cylinders. You can use this grade for load-bearing structures, such as building frameworks, structural supports and bridges.
• S355JR: This grade of steel has a higher strength than others and excellent toughness. It’s commonly used to create heavy-duty structures and buildings. Heavier sections are typically in the grade JO, but they can also be available in strong hollow sections, plates and rolled products. This is used for heavy-duty applications.

Bright Mild Steel

Bright Drawn Mild Steel (BDMS) is a grade of mild steel that’s cold-finished. It’s known for its smooth surface finish and excellent dimensional accuracy. This grade can come in flat bar, round bar and square bar to suit your needs and project. It can be used for more decorative applications or for precision parts because of its smooth and bright surface, exceptional machinability and tight tolerances!

Mild Steel EN Grades

The material can also come in mild steel EN grades that all offer a standard composition that’s unique. Each of these grades can be used to create different structures and products to suit your project needs. The most common ones are:

• EN1A: This is one of the most popular mild steel grades that’s relied on for many machining applications. It has impressive machinability that makes it an easy grade to work with for any application. This grade also boasts a flawless smooth surface finish and can even withstand high-speed machining to create precise parts.
• EN3B: This grade is a general-purpose engineering material that offers a bright finish. It offers impressive weldability to create solid structures and to combine the mild steel with other materials. It’s also very easy to form and shape and has good strength, so you can use it for a wide array of applications.
• EN8: This mild steel EN grade has a medium carbon content and great tensile strength. It can create strong structures because the strength of the metal is much higher than that of other grades. It also offers great wear resistance to create a flawless and precise finish, without any cracking or breakage.
• EN9: This grade has a slightly higher carbon content than EN8 to provide you with a high-strength material that also has great hardness. It can be heat-treated to improve these properties and be used in heavy-duty applications. EN9 also has good wear resistance and lower ductility.
• EN19: This grade of mild steel is an alloy material that’s made from a mixture of chromium and molybdenum. The combination gives this material a very high tensile strength and great toughness to withstand harsher conditions and heavy use. It also has fatigue resistance and can be heat-treated to further improve its strength!
• EN24T: This mild steel grade is a high-strength alloy steel that is supplied already heat-treated. Due to this, EN24T offers unparalleled strength and toughness to withstand heavy-duty applications and constant heavy use for years to come. It also has great fatigue and impact resistance to withstand tough conditions and heavy machining.
• EN36: This grade is a case-hardening alloy steel that has a soft core but a very hard outer surface. Because of this, EN36 has unmatched wear resistance on the surface to be compatible with numerous machining applications. It has a tough internal structure to provide stability and strength.
• EN16: This grade is a low-alloy steel that offers good strength and toughness to be used for many general engineering applications. It has greater machinability than higher alloy steels and can be heat-treated. However, it doesn’t offer as much strength as EN19 or EN24.

The Uses of Mild Steel for Each Grade

There are many uses of mild steel for each grade, which means that you can use them for different applications. It’s important to know these uses to understand which grade you need for your project. Otherwise, you’ll end up with the wrong grade, which makes it difficult to work with.

S235JR

This grade is typically used for:

• Construction: It can be used to create steel beams, frames for buildings, bridges and platforms.
• Metalwork: This grade can be used to make gates, railings, fencing, furniture frames and decorative steelwork.
• General Engineering: This can be used for strong brackets, base plates, agricultural equipment and frames.

S275JR

S275JR mild steel grade can be used to make:

• Building frameworks
• Structural supports
• Bridges
• Infrastructure.

S355JR

This mild carbon steel grade can be used for more heavy-duty applications due to its better strength and stability. You can create:

• Heavy-duty structural parts
• Industrial frameworks
• Load-bearing beams.

Bright Drawn Mild Steel (BDMS)

BDMS can be used for more precise work due to its flawless surface finish. It can be used for:

• Shafts
• Fittings
• Fasteners
• Machine parts
• Precision engineering parts.

Mild Steel EN Grades

Each mild steel EN grade has a different purpose to use across a variety of applications. These are:

• EN1A: This grade can be used for nuts, bolts, studs, screws and precision-machined parts.
• EN3B: This is typically used for structural frameworks, machinery parts, construction parts and general fabrication work.
• EN8: As this grade of mild steel has more strength, it can be used for gears, bolts, studs, pins, axles and shafts.
• EN9: This mild steel grade can be used for gears, shafts, axles and automotive parts.
• EN19: Due to its impressive strength and toughness, this grade can be used for crankshafts, high-stress bolts, heavy-duty shafts and gears.
• EN24T: This grade can be used to create quality gears, fasteners, aerospace parts, motorsport parts and high-performance shafts.
• EN36: This mild steel EN grade can be used to create precise gears, bearings, camshafts and bushes.
• EN16: Because this grade is great for general-purpose engineering projects, it can be used for studs, bolts, shafts and general engineering parts.

Our Collection of Mild Steel Grades

At Rapid Metals, we have a large collection of mild steel grades to suit your project needs. We are one of the leading steel sections suppliers in the UK and can help you create quality, flawless products that last. Our collection boasts mild steel in angle, box section, channel, cut block, flat, round, round tube, sheet and so much more. Explore our high-quality mild steel grades and find the right one for the job!