Ferritic stainless steel sheet for fuel tank and fuel pipe and method for making the same

Abstract

A ferritic stainless steel sheet for fuel tanks and fuel pipes comprises, by mass percent, about 0.1% or less of C; about 1.0% or less of Si; about 1.5% or less of Mn; about 0.06% or less of P; about 0.03% or less of S; about 1.0% or less of Al; about 11% to about 20% Cr; about 2.0% or less of Ni; about 0.5% to about 3.0% Mo; about 0.02% to about 1.0% V; about 0.04% or less of N; at least one of about 0.01% to about 0.8% Nb and about 0.01% to about 1.0% Ti; and the balance being Fe and incidental impurities. The ferritic stainless steel sheet is produced by rough-rolling a slab having the above composition; hot-rolling the rough-rolled sheet under a linear pressure of at least about 3.5 MN/m at a final pass in the finish rolling; cold-rolling the hot-rolled sheet at a gross reduction rate of at least about 75%; and annealing the cold-rolled sheet. The cold-rolling step includes one rolling stage or at least two rolling stages including intermediate annealing.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.