GB/T 13237-2013Cold rolled quality carbon structural steel sheets and strips (English PDF)

Foreword

This document was issued on 17 December 2013 by the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the People's Republic of China and the Standardization Administration of China, and has been in force since 1 September 2014.

It replaces GB/T 13237-1991.

Classification: ICS 77.140.50, CCS H46.

1 Scope

China's national standard for cold rolled quality carbon structural steel sheets and strips. Quality carbon steel differs from ordinary carbon structural steel by control rather than by composition: the carbon range is narrower and the sulfur and phosphorus limits are lower, and the difference shows up not in the tensile test but in what can be done to the material afterwards. A steel whose carbon varies between heats cannot be quenched and tempered to a predictable hardness, and one carrying sulfur cracks when it is formed. Cold rolled means the strip was reduced below the recrystallisation temperature and then annealed, which gives it a close thickness tolerance, a flat shape and a bright clean surface that hot rolled material cannot have. The combination is what makes this the material of pressed and drawn parts that will later be hardened - tools, springs, chain, and the components of machines and appliances.

About this edition

GB/T 13237-2013 is the current edition. It was issued on 17 December 2013 and has been in force since 1 September 2014, replacing GB/T 13237-1991.

GB/T 13237-1991 has been superseded: a specification that still cites it is citing a withdrawn edition.

The interval between issue and effect is the transition period. It exists so that producers, laboratories and buyers can requalify products, revise procedures and use up documentation before the new text becomes the one that applies. The date on this page is the official one from the record of the Standardization Administration.

Classification and status

GB/T 13237-2013 is classified under ICS 77.140.50, in the field of metallurgy. ICS is the International Classification for Standards, the same scheme used by ISO and by the national bodies of most countries, which is what allows a Chinese standard to be placed beside its foreign counterparts on subject rather than on number.

Its Chinese Standard Classification code is CCS H46. CCS is the domestic scheme, a letter for the sector and two digits for the subject within it, and it is the code by which the standard is filed and searched in China.

The GB/T prefix marks a recommended national standard. It is not, in itself, law: it becomes binding when a contract names it, when a regulation or a mandatory standard refers to it, or when a producer declares conformity with it. In practice that covers most of the cases in which it will be read - a purchase specification, an inspection agreement or a certification scheme.

How a Chinese national standard is set out

Chinese national standards are drafted to the rules of GB/T 1.1, which fixes the order in which a standard is set out. The document opens with a foreword recording the issuing bodies, the relationship to any previous edition and the technical committee responsible for it. Clause 1 is the scope. Clause 2 lists the normative references - the other standards that have to be applied together with this one, and without which its requirements cannot be met. Clause 3 gives the terms and definitions. The technical clauses follow: the requirements themselves, the test or measurement methods by which conformity is established, the inspection rules that say how a lot is sampled and judged, and, for a product standard, the provisions on marking, packaging, transport and storage. Annexes, normative or informative, come last.

GB/T 13237-2013 runs to 13 pages in the English translation. What is delivered is the complete document in that order: every clause, every table, every figure and every annex of the Chinese original, with the same numbering, so that a reference to a clause number in a contract or a test report points to the same place in both languages.