This specification covers carbon steel flat wire in coils or cut lengths. The steel materials shall be produced from rimmed, capped, semi-killed, hot-rolled or cold-rolled steel. The steel specimens shall undergo cast or heat analysis and product analysis and shall conform to the required chemical compositions of carbon, manganese, phosphorus, sulfur, silicon, and copper. The desired edge shall be classified as follows: prepared edge of a specified contour produced when a very accurate width is required or when the finish of the edge suitable for electroplating is required, or both (Number 1 Edge); not applicable to flat wire products ( Number 2 Edge); approximately square edge produced by slitting (Number 3 Edge); rounded edge produced either by edge rolling or resulting from flat rolling of a round section (Number 4 Edge); square edge produced from slit-edge material on which the burr is eliminated by rolling or filling (Number 5 Edge); and square edge produced by edge rolling when the width tolerance and edge condition are not as exacting as for No. 1 Edge (Number 6 Edge). The dimensional tolerances shall conform to the required values of thickness, width and length. The steel materials shall conform to the required values of temper, Rockwell hardness and tensile strength.

1.1 This specification covers carbon steel flat wire in coils or cut lengths. Flat wire is classified as a cold-rolled section, rectangular in shape, 0.500 in. [12.7 mm] or less in width and under 0.250 in. [6.35 mm] in thickness.

1.2 Low-carbon steel flat wire is produced from steel compositions with a maximum carbon content of 0.25 % by cast or heat analysis.

1.3 Carbon spring steel flat wire is produced to a carbon range in which the specified or required maximum is over 0.25 % by cast or heat analysis.

1.3.1 Two types of carbon spring steel flat wire are produced:

1.3.1.1 Untempered cold-rolled carbon spring steel flat wire, produced to several desirable combinations of properties and

1.3.1.2 Hardened and tempered carbon spring steel wire.

1.4 Definite application flat wire is a product developed for a specific application and may be specified only by size and descriptive name.

1.5 The values stated in either inch-pound units or SI units are to be regarded as standard. Within the text, the SI units are shown in brackets. The values stated in each system are not exact equivalents; therefore, each system must be used independently of the other. Combining values from the two systems may result in non-conformance with this specification.