Provided is a stainless steel substrate for a solar cell, the stainless steel substrate including, by mass %, Cr: 9% to 25%, C: 0.03% or less, Mn: 2% or less, P: 0.05% or less, S: 0.01% or less, N: 0.03% or less, Al: 0.005% to 5.0%, Si: 0.05% to 4.0%, and a remainder including Fe and unavoidable impurities, in which an oxide film containing (i) Al.sub.2O.sub.3 in an amount of 50% or more or containing (i) Al.sub.2O.sub.3 and (ii) SiO.sub.2 in a total amount of 50% or more is formed on a surface of stainless steel having a composition which contains Al: 0.5% or more and/or Si: 0.4% or more and satisfies the following expression (1).
Cr+10Si+Mn+Al>24.5  (1)

A method for manufacturing a high-strength cold-rolled steel sheet includes a temperature distribution forming step of forming a temperature distribution in a width direction of a steel sheet such that a temperature of the steel sheet increases from an end of the steel sheet in the width direction toward a center part of the steel sheet in the width direction, and a water quenching step of performing water quenching treatment on the steel sheet by immersing, in cooling water, the steel sheet on which the temperature distribution is formed in the width direction.

Provided is a galvannealed steel sheet with excellent anti-powdering property when press forming is performed, without controlling the contents of chemical elements in steel which are effective for strengthening a steel sheet, such as Si and P, to be low in order to achieve required material properties and without increasing cost due to, for example, processes being complicated. A galvannealed steel sheet with excellent anti-powdering property has a coated layer taking in grains of a base steel sheet such that the grains constitute 2.0% or more and 15.0% or less of the coated layer in terms of cross section area ratio.

A method for producing a steel sheet for packaging includes: cold-rolling a hot-rolled steel sheet made from a steel having a carbon content of 10 to 1000 ppm by weight, the steel of the hot-rolled steel sheet having a predetermined recrystallization temperature (T.sub.R); heating the cold-rolled steel sheet to a predetermined heating temperature (T.sub.E), where T.sub.R≤T.sub.E, the heating performed at least partially in the presence of a nitrogen donor at least until T.sub.R is reached such that when the cold-rolled steel sheet is heated, nitrogen from the nitrogen donor is diffused at least into a near-surface region of the cold-rolled sheet steel and incorporated in the near-surface region, as a result of which the T.sub.R in the near-surface region is increased by a value ΔT, where T.sub.E<T.sub.R+ΔT. Using this method, high-strength steel sheets having a multilayer microstructure can be produced.

A method for manufacturing a product from a flexibly rolled strip material includes the steps of: providing a strip material made from sheet steel; flexibly rolling the strip material such that a variable thickness is produced along the length of the strip material; electrolytically coating the strip material with a metallic coating material containing at least 93% of zinc by mass after the flexible rolling; heat treating at temperatures above 350° C. and below a solidus line of the coating material after the electrolytic coating; working a blank from the flexibly rolled strip material; and hot forming the blank.

Provided is a metal gasket including, expressed in mass%, C: 0.10% or less, Si: 1.0% or less, Mn: 2.0% or less, P: 0.04% or less (including 0%), S: 0.01% or less (including 0%), Ni: 25.0-60.0%, Cr: 10.0-20.0%, either Mo or W alone, or both Mo + W/2: 0.05-5.0%, Al: more than 0.8% to 3.0% or less, Ti: 1.5-4.0%, Nb: 0.05-2.5%, V: 1.0% or less (including 0%), B: 0.001-0.015%, Mg: 0.0005-0.01%, S/Mg: 1.0 or less, N: 0.01% or less (including 0%), and O: 0.005% or less (including 0%), with the remainder being Fe and unavoidable impurities. The metal gasket has a metal structure in which a precipitate γ′ phase having an average equivalent circle diameter of 25 nm or larger is not present within the austenite base.

Manufacturing a steel sheet for a steel belt includes hot rolling a steel slab containing, in mass %, 0.60 to 0.80% of C, 1.0% or less of Si, 0.10 to 1.0% of Mn, 0.020% or less P, 0.010% or less S, 0.1 to 1.0% of Cr, 0 to 0.5% of V, 0 to 0.1% of Ti, 0 to 0.1% of Nb, and 0 to 0.01% of B, the balance Fe and unavoidable impurities, under a finish hot rolling temperature of 800 to 900° C. An average cooling rate from finish rolling to coiling is 20° C. per second or more. A coiling temperature is 450 to 650° C. The hot-rolled slab is cold rolled with a total rolling reduction ratio of 40% or more and a reduction ratio per one pass of less than 12%, without performing a heat treatment. The cold-rolled slab is aged at 200 to 500° C. for 0.5 to 30 hours.

A steel sheet for cans has a chemical composition containing, by mass %, C: 0.015% or more and 0.150% or less, Si: 0.04% or less, Mn: 1.0% or more and 2.0% or less, P: 0.025% or less, S: 0.015% or less, Al: 0.01% or more and 0.10% or less, N: 0.0005% or more and less than 0.0050%, Ti: 0.003% or more and 0.015% or less, B: 0.0010% or more and 0.0040% or less, and the balance being Fe and inevitable impurities. The steel sheet has a microstructure including a ferrite phase as a main phase and at least one of a martensite phase and a retained austenite phase as a second phase, the total area fraction of the second phase being 1.0% or more, and the sheet has a tensile strength of 480 MPa or more, a total elongation of 12% or more, and a yield elongation of 2.0% or less.

Provided is a high-strength hot-rolled steel sheet containing, by mass %, C: 0.050 to 0.200%, Si: 0.01 to 1.5%, Mn: 1.0 to 3.0%, B: 0.0002 to 0.0030%, Ti: 0.03 to 0.20%, P: limited to 0.05% or less, S: limited to 0.005% or less, Al: limited to 0.5% or less, N: limited to 0.009% or less, and one or more of Nb: 0.01 to 0.20%, V: 0.01 to 0.20%, and Mo: 0.01 to 0.20%, with the balance being composed of Fe and inevitable impurities. In the high-strength hot-rolled steel sheet, a ratio of a length of small-angle crystal grain boundaries that are boundaries having a crystal orientation angle of 5° or more but less than 15° to a length of large-angle crystal grain boundaries that are boundaries having a crystal orientation angle of 15° or more is 1:1 to 1:4, an total segregation amount of C and B in the large-angle grain boundaries is 4 to 20 atoms/nm.sup.2, tensile strength is 850 MPa or higher, and a hole expansion ratio is 25% or more.

A cold-rolled and recrystallization-annealed flat steel product may include a ferritic microstructure, which possesses optimized formability and suitability for a wide variety of applications, including painting, for example. The flat steel product may include a steel comprising (in percent by weight): C: 0.0001%-0.003%, Si: 0.001%-0.025%, Mn: 0.05%-0.20%, P: 0.001%-0.015%, Al: 0.02%-0.055%, Ti: 0.01%-0.1%. The steel may further include at least one of Cr: 0.001%-0.05%, V: up to 0.005%, Mo: up to 0.015%, or N: 0.001%-0.004%, which may have the following mechanical properties: Rp0.2≦180 MPa, Rm≦340 MPa, A80≦40%, and n value ≦0.23. At least one surface may have an arithmetic mean roughness Ra of 0.8-1.6 μm and a peak count RPc of 75/cm. The present disclosure also concerns methods for producing flat steel products.