Originally Posted by
Blacksmith101
im sorry to tell all of you who seem not to know anything about metal but
Hi tensile steel is a good steel and nearly bulletproof meaning if you get hit buy a car or crash it will hold up and wont loose its strength even if bent so i would recommend it for off road and on road use.
on the other hand Chrome Molybdneum steel is more rigid which means it is less likely to bend but more likely to snap it is not stronger in most meanings of the word related to metal.
Flexibility is
essential in metal this is proven in what they use to build sky scrappers which if you did not know sway slightly in the wind a rigid metal would snap.
Chromoly is only good on ramps
High tensile steel is steel that has more than twice the tensile strength of mild steel and ten times that of wood. Such steel is widely used in motorway safety fences, offshore mooring cables and pre-stressed concrete and bridge ropes. The stoutness of metals is normally reduced by increasing their tensile strengths.
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High tensile steel put simply is used where structures require high tensile strength. Tensile stress is where the forces on a material are "pulling" from each end away from
Ultimate tensile strength (UTS), often shortened to tensile strength (TS) or ultimate strength, is the maximum stress that a material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before failing or breaking. Tensile strength is not the same as compressive strength and the values can be quite different.
Some materials will break sharply, without plastic deformation, in what is called a brittle failure. Others, which are more ductile, including most metals, will experience some plastic deformation and possiblynecking before fracture
(Quote Wiki) : Ultimate tensile strength - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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You're confusing the
technical term,
high tensile steel, with the "hi-tensile" term, casually used in the bicycle industry.
Many types of steels are referred to as having the property of high tensile strength. 4130 chromoly steel is just one of such steels. "Hi-tensile" 1020 steel used in the bicycle industry does not have high tensile strength like chromoly steel and other related proprietary steels used for bicycle frames. In fact, it has comparatively low tensile strength. It also has low yield strength. The weight of all steels is relatively the same, due to the much higher iron content, than any other element contained in steel. This fact makes the mass of all steels relatively equivalent. However, it's the addition of other minor elements which contribute to the properties of other types of steels, that make them different from one another. For example, when we add, 1%Cr, .2%Mo, .2%Si, .04%S, .04%Mn, and .3% carbon, together with a remainder of Iron, we get a very strong type of steel, called chromoly steel. Once the carbon content exceeds 2.1%, we then are no longer able to refer to it as, "steel". It then becomes, "cast iron". You know, that material of which gas pipes, stove pipes, black pots and pans are made. That "hi-tensile" steel the bicycle industry casually refers to, is really closer to cast iron, than it is to chromoly steel, primarily due to its high carbon content.
There's really no comparison of chromoly steel to hi-tensile steel. Just like there's really no comparison to steel that has high tensile strength, to "hi-tensile" steel. Hi-tensile steel bicycle tubes are rarely butted, due to the fact that extra material is needed to maintain their strength. Chromoly steel tubes can be butted, because chromoly steel is strong and extra material can be shaved off in order to make the bicycle lighter for the purpose of attaining greater speed and increase handling responsiveness.
http://racetechsteel.com.au/technical