Steel strips, which are also often referred to as strip steel, are flat-rolled, thin steel sheets that are very widely used in trim applications for the construction industry, though they are applied in many other ways as well. They are manufactured in steel service centers and purchased by roll form fabricators who further process the steel strips.
Steel strips are long, narrow pieces of steel that are sometimes composed of a backing and a track or teeth. The word "strip" is not descriptive of a standardized set of measurements to which all steel strips adhere. Strip is a general term that refers to a common steel shape produced in large volumes by steel service centers. Steel strips are produced so widely because they have a very wide range of uses all across industry, commerce and in consumer products contexts. Steel strips are very widely used in the automotive parts manufacturing industry; they are used for trim and for other essential automobile parts. In agriculture, steel strips are often important parts of farming equipment, animal feed and containment equipment, agricultural products storage equipment and many other kinds of important agricultural components. In the textile industry, steel strips often play an important role in weaving and sewing equipment. Steel strips are also used in machine construction, paper milling and printing and even musical instrument production.
Steel strips are usually manufactured through cold rolling or hot rolling processes and may be tempered, hardened or annealed, depending on their intended use. Rolling processes involve forcing a metal between a series of rollers, which flattens and imparts qualities of strength onto the material. These qualities depend on the temperature at which the process is performed, and different processes are used to create different effects. Hardness, finish and other qualities of strength, durability, flexibility and even surface appearance depend on the temperature at which the metal is processed. Hot rolled steel strips are manufactured in steel service centers but require further processing, such as slitting or banking, after they have been sold. Also, because heat makes steel more susceptible to oxidation, hot rolled steel strips must often be cleansed by acid baths or other surface treatment materials after hot rolling processes. Cold rolled steel strips, because they are not exposed to heat, usually require no additional surface treatment. Considerations for a given strip material's intended application always determine in what way the strip is formed.
