Overcoming the marine chloride challenge
The development of BUMAX NITRO 109 began, as the best engineering solutions often do, with a customer problem that no one else could solve.
In highly aggressive marine environments, such as offshore platforms and marine propulsion systems, chloride exposure leads to stress corrosion cracking. Engineers needed 10.9 class strength at large diameters, in environments where standard solutions and even conventional austenitic stainless steels fail.
BUMAX NITRO 109, a nitrogen-strengthened austenitic stainless steel, was designed specifically to meet this need. The addition of nitrogen as a deliberate alloying element enhances yield and tensile strength, improves pitting corrosion resistance, and maintains the austenitic structure that provides stainless steel’s characteristic toughness and formability. The launch of NITRO 109 exemplified the BUMAX approach: listening closely to customer challenges, and investing in materials science and process development to develop new solutions.