Not only Wine gets better over time … CorTen – “living metal”

Today, we’re talking about a very original material with an ever increasing success in Design, especially for outdoor applications.

It’s the COR-TEN steel: I mean CORrosion resistance and TENsile strength.

Its technical characteristics are so interesting.
In fact, it has a high resistance to corrosion and all atmospheric agents attack, up to 8 times higher than the one of carbon steel.

This resistance makes it particularly suitable for outdoor use, in addition the natural oxidation in contact with the air will form a protective coat which prevents at all corrosion progressive extension.

This coat gives it a warm brown color, a tone that continuosly changes over time.
Let’s say that this material ages, becoming even more beautiful aesthetically, but of course maintaining its own resistance.

Corten is indeed considered as a “living” material, in fact it’s able to protect itself : the superficial coat when damaged or scratched, is able to restart the oxidaion process autonomously, so it re-builds a new protection. This phenomenon of regeneration is repeated many times, thus maintaining its protection and its appearance of aesthetic beauty over time.

During oxidation, the color varies from an initial orange to a reddish-brown color.

Many try to imitate the natural effect to achieve the same aesthetic levels , but pay attention that the essential factors for the correct formation of the protection coat are alternating cycles of dry and wet, which require specific times and methods, so beware of imitations because if you do not rely on experts you risk not reach the guarantee of a constant result over the time!

Thanks to its elegant and sophisticated appearance, warm and metallic tones, very trendy nowadays, this kind of steel is particularly appreciated by architects and by our customers.
It can be inserted in any environment, modern or classic houses and its applications are really multiple.

So let’s be impressed by the CorTen!