What are the strength and yield values for stainless steel bolts?

Typically when bolts are ordered, they are called out by a specific ASTM or SAE grade. Stainless steel bolts are a bit different though, as they are commercially available and regularly ordered simply by the material itself, most commonly 316 or 304 stainless steel.

Unlike bolts that fall under ASTM specifications, there are no specific requirements for mechanical properties for bolts being called out by the steel grade only. In most cases however, 316 and 304 stainless steel round bar is produced under ASTM A276, which is the standard specification for stainless steel bars and shapes. ASTM A276 does have minimum yield and tensile strength requirements for round bar, which are 30 ksi yield and 75 ksi tensile.

There are some ASTM grades for stainless steel bolts that do have mechanical requirements. The most common are ASTM A193, grades B8 (304SS) and B8M (316SS), and ASTM F593.

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2 comments

    Hi,

    Can you please advise on the pullout strengths for stainless steel threaded rods when used for bolt-through applications, with nuts and possibly an additional domed nut ?

    We have lots of applications and prefer to use as small a size as possible eg M3-3mm.

    Generally 100kg pullout force should be enough for our appliations but also need 50kg or going upto 500kg.

    Many Thanks C

    @Charles- In through bolted applications, typically the failure method is the fracture of the threaded material. In my calculations, which are estimates since I had to convert from imperial, I get a tensile strength for M3 stainless steel threaded rod of about 204kg. If you need more capacity, moving up to M4 would get you a minimum tensile of approximately 477kg. There is no safety factor built into those numbers, so you’ll need to determine how much padding you want to design in.

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