Knife Steel Composition Chart Help

Graph Builder

- Graph builder can build the graph for up to 12 alloys simultaneously to compare their chemical composition. Select the desired alloys in the table by checking the box in the # column and click the Graph button. More details about the graph behavior in the Graph builder help.

?

- Question marks indicate unknown data. For the elements, ? indicates that it is known to be present in the alloy, however, exact amount is unknown.

Sorting

- Click on any column name or little red sort direction indicator. If this is not the column by which the previous sort was performed then the sort is done in ascending direction. If this column is already sorting the table, then sorting is performed in the opposite direction from the current sort direction. You can also specify sort column and direction from the Search form.

Notes

- Alloy names with ^* have comments attached. Move mouse over the cell containing it and popup widow will be displayed. To close the popup, move mouse outside of the alloy name, or click the sticky close button, or hit the Esc key.

Filtering and Searching

- Click the Search button to display record filter dialog.

Use mouse click on the column header to sort the chart by that column. Ctrl+Click on the column header to hide it. To restore hidden columns, go to Settings dialog, click on the Columns button, or click ALT+/ on the key board, and select desired columns there.

Table Columns

:
Name - Indicates the alloy name. Which name is used depends on the name Column setting in the options;
# - Check the box in this column to include the alloy in the Analysis Graph. Selected alloys are highlighted. Click on the Graph button to build the graph for the selected alloys.
Base - Alloy base element. For all steels that would be Iron (Fe), Cobalt based alloys that's Co.
Tech - Technology used in making the alloy, for conventional alloys the column is empty, CPM stands for Crucible Particle Metallurgy and PM stands for Powder Metallurgy, MM - MicroMelt®, MC - MicroClean®, etc.
CC - Two letter ISO 3166 Country Code where the alloy is produced or standard originated from. Maker - Alloy manufacturer name.

Data Structure

- Alloy compositions names are grouped by their standard and proprietary names. The top element in the group is the name out of the reference group which matches current search criteria. For the default view, i.e. no search parameters, the group name is the name of the composition being displayed. The same group may appear in the table more than once, depending on how many compositions from the group satisfy given search criteria. Reference names form the group can be hidden from the Settings dialog, by checking the Hide Ref. Names checkbox. The chart gives you the ability to view compositions either with their own names, or in any standard that it has record for. Details on display algorithm in Advanced Search Form section, Name Column part.

Name Column - Indicates for which standard the contents are generated, if it says name, then the content is for All standards and proprietary names. otherwise, the table is built for a specific steel standard, which will be shown as name.

Quick Navigation Menus - New since Steel Chart 4.0. Basically they are built up on the Alloy Directory listings. Thus, there are four of them, Standards, Makers, Country and Tech. Mouse over either one of them and it will display a menu, from which you pick an item and corresponding listing of the alloys will be displayed. E.g. you can quickly display all of the alloys for a given standard, or for certain maker or country, etc... As mentioned above, this is an equivalent of manually typing directory listing url.

To access table view options click the Settings button.

Default Standard

- Selects default standard specification. For any search operation, if another standard is not specified e.g in Advanced Search, selected standard will be used. Recommended to set this parameter to value other than All, in order to improve initial chart loading speed. This limits the number of records loaded by default. Search operations allow to find any record later.

Hide Ref. Names

- Hides reference names of the group. For large datasets may take a second or two. Hidden reference names can be displayed again by unchecking the box. The same behavior is controlled by query parameter hrn, where value 1 hides reference names, and value 0 or no value at all displays them. When this mode is enabled, the hover tooltips for each alloy will display alloy note and its reference names. Also, please note, this option is engaged in directory listing mode, you have to explicitly override it. However, if the settings were saved in a cookie, they will have an effect.

Sort By

- Sorts query results by the chosen column in ascending order. If Descending checkbox is checked then sort is performed in descending order.

Please note, all the settings in this dialog can be saved in a cookie, if you have them enabled, or make an exception rule for zknives.com domain.

Restore Defaults

- Restores default view settings and deletes the cookie for the chart.

Save Settings

- Steel chart can store your view settings above in the cookie. To do that, click the Save Settings button. Next time you run the query saved settings will be in effect, but they will be overridden by both, query string parameters and search form. So, only if the particular setting wasn't changed either in query or form it will be in effect. E.g. you saved Name Column as W-Nr. If you go to the steel chart page next time w/o any queries, chart will have Name set to W-Nr, however when you open the Settings dialog, you can change W-Nr to let's say AISI and it will return data for AISI standard. The same rule applies to all of the view settings.

Manage Columns

- Displays chart column manager. Can be also invoked by clicking ALT+C on the keyboard, if your browser shortcuts do not interfere with it. Check/uncheck columns in Column Manager in order to show/hide them. Click the Close button to close the popup.

Ok

- Apply the settings to the chart view.

Cancel

- Cancel all the changes made in the settings view and return to the chart.

To filter alloys by their chemical composition check the required element's checkbox. This operation adds a condition that the alloy has more than 0% of that element in its composition. However, how much exactly isn't tested. This also returns all the rows with ? in the element content column, since ? indicates the presence of the element, in unknown amount.
The filter also allows to select only alloys with specific amount of the given element, or specify only lower or upper boundaries.
When only

>=

field has value, the condition is that the alloy has greater or at least that much % content of the given element. E.g. having C checked and 0.80 in

>=

field will return all of the alloys having 0.80% or more Carbon(C) in them.
When only

<=

field has value, the condition is that the alloy has less or equal % content of the given element. E.g. having C checked and 0.80 in

<=

field will return all of the alloys having 0.80% or less Carbon(C) in them.
Finally, when both,

<=

and

>=

have values, the alloy must have that element between min and max specified in those fields. Going back to our previous example, C is checked,

>=

is set to 0.5% and

<=

is set to 1.5%. The query will return all the alloys with Carbon content between 0.5% and 1.5%.
The same can be done for any of the element in the database. General rules apply to all of the elements. When the given chemical element is not checked, corresponding input boxes are disabled. Checking an element checkbox enables the min/max percentage input boxes. Acceptable values are between 0 and 100. Values outside of the valid range are discarded. If max% is less than min% then they are automatically swapped. When both, min and max % are selected alloys with ? for that element will be discarded, since the exact amount is unknown and therefore it can't be properly validated for the range. However, if just element checkbox is selected, then the alloys with ? for that element will also be returned, since it it known the element is present in the alloy.