Cleaning and Maintenance

• The structure should be, as far as possible, self-cleaning by the natural elements.

• The architect should minimise horizontal components that can collect dirt. This dirt, when washed off by rain. may cause uneven streaking of the areas below.

• Designs that concentrate or directionalise the flow of rainwater should be avoided. An overhang can be protected beyond any lower one to avoid splatter or concentration of dirt-carrying water.

• Sheltered areas, such as canopies or soffits, should be designed so they can be readily cleaned, particularly in low, street-side locations.

• Joint designs that minimise dirt accumulation should be used.

• The possibility of staining of the stainless steel by run off from other materials, eg. rust from carbon steel, copper and aluminium, including hidden clips or fasteners, must be avoided.

• Grooves, recesses, and excessively complex contours, which hamper the regular easy cleaning associated with stainless steel, should be avoided.

In the fabricating shop, good housekeeping is particularly important.

The following are points that should be watched during fabrication:

1. Prevention of Contamination
   Isolation of the stainless steel processing area. All work should be done in an area set aside for that material and isolated from other metals. This is to avoid the possibility of the pick up of carbon steel and other contaminants by the stainless steel surface.
   - All wire brushes must be made from stainless steel.
   - All tools used to grind or polish stainless steel must be appropriately suited to and dedicated to stainless steel and not used for other metals.
   - Where guillotines or shear blades are used they should be thoroughly cleaned to remove any carbon steel chips or shavings from the area prior to working with stainless steel. To minimise pick up from the blade, if possible the guillotines or shear blades should be kept in a dedicated area and made from hard chrome plated steel or high carbon, high chrome steel.
   - Rolls, forming mandrels, press brakes, etc., should only be used when they have been thoroughly cleaned to remove any carbon steel particles. If possible, the tool should he kept in a dedicated area and made from hard chrome plated tool steel, high carbon-high chrome steel or from one of the aluminium bronze tool materials.

2. Local Heating
   Because of the combination of low thermal conductivity and high thermal expansion, care must be taken with austenitic stainless steels to minimise any local heating during welding, grinding, polishing and buffing that could cause warping and / or buckling in the areas being treated in this way.

3. Thermal Expansion
   The austenitic stainless steels have a higher coefficient of thermal expansion than carbon steels. It is therefore necessary to allow for expansion joints in panels and particularly long runs of metal such as rainwater guttering

4. Work Hardening
   The austenitic stainless steels have a high propensity to work hardening. The progressive forming stages involved in the fabrication must take into account the additional allowance in over bending for increased spring back.

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