As a versatile iron alloy with 0.05–0.25% carbon content, mild steel excels in diverse general applications—structural frameworks, machinery parts, and more. Discover its composition, strength, and real-world uses now.
Olivia
Published Date: 2025/10/20
As one of the most prominent steels used today, mild steel is known for being highly machinable and reasonably priced. It’s also ductile and weldable, which is why it’s a hit in many industries, like construction and automotive. Let’s learn more about this useful metal.
Also known as low-carbon steel, mild steel is an iron with a carbon content of up to 0.2%. It might have other alloying elements in it, but carbon is the main one here. There are different grades of this steel type, and each one has a different carbon content—the more carbon a grade has, the stronger it will be, but it will sacrifice some of its ductility. Manufacturers also like to play around with other properties like tensile strength, corrosion resistance, and wear resistance by throwing other elements in the mix, like manganese, for example.
You can recognize mild steel by its four-digit AISI (American Iron and Steel Institute) classification codes because they usually start with a 10 and end with two numbers that are less than 20, which shows roughly how much carbon it contains in hundredths. Most of these types of steel have low quantities of phosphorus and sulfur—usually under one percent—but they’re considered impurities, so keeping them low is a must. It’s used to make things like auto bodies, furniture, wire, rebar, and fasteners, and stronger versions are often made into structures and storage tank plating. Here’s an example of some bars made from this material:
