Certification of salt spray performance of stainless steel strip

The salt spray performance of a stainless steel flat rolled product is not solely dependent on chemical composition.  Exposure to contaminants during fabrication of the strip and subsequent processing of the strip into parts can greatly affect the salt spray performance of a finished part.  NKS is not aware of any producing mill source that will guarantee the salt spray performance of their product in the as received condition or after subsequent fabrication into a finished part.  The best way to qualify the salt spray performance of a product is to lock in the raw material supply, fabrication and subsequent cleaning and handling of the parts.  Salt spray testing is then performed on the final part to quality the raw material source and complete fabrication process.  This would be similar to the PPAP qualification of a part.  Since salt spray testing is costly and time consuming it is not practical to test every production lot.  Periodic monitoring testing can be performed to verify continuing salt spray performance.