ForMatter/Materials/metal/Steel, Cold-Rolled Deep-Drawing Sheet (AISI 1008/1010 / EN DC04)

mat_steel_sheet_drawing

Steel, Cold-Rolled Deep-Drawing Sheet (AISI 1008/1010 / EN DC04)

low-carbon sheet steel, deep-drawing grade · deep-drawing steel, DDS sheet, AISI 1008 cold-rolled sheet, AISI 1010 cold-rolled sheet, EN DC04, EN DC06, auto-body steel, white-goods steel, pressed steel, stamped steel sheet

highlast updated 2026-04-28

The thin sheet of mild steel that gets pressed into shape — the body of a Ford Model T, the skin of a refrigerator, the drum of a washing machine, the seat of a Tolix chair, the back of a filing cabinet. Lower carbon than a bar of mild steel and rolled cold, which makes it soft and ductile enough to deep-draw, stamp, fold, and bend into a hollow body without cracking. The material that made the Fordist car possible — and that turned the icebox into the refrigerator, the washtub into the washing machine, the iron-framed cabinet into the seamless white box.

Cold-rolled low-carbon sheet steel in the AISI 1008–1010 / EN DC03–DC06 family. Carbon content 0.06–0.10%, manganese 0.25–0.45%, deliberately low silicon to keep the surface finish clean for paint and zinc coating. Cold-rolled to thickness 0.4–3.2 mm and supplied in coil. Drawability is the central property — captured by the plastic-strain ratio r-value (typically r > 1.6 for DC04, r > 2.0 for DC06 IF-grade) and the strain-hardening exponent n (~0.22–0.24). High r and n let a flat blank deep-draw into a cup or pan without thinning to failure at the punch radius. Tensile strength 270–410 MPa as supplied, yield 140–280 MPa, total elongation 28–45%. Modulus 200–210 GPa as for any low-carbon steel. Surface is bright cold-roll, oil-dipped against rust, or zinc-coated (electrogalvanized for auto-body, hot-dip galvanized for white-goods and outdoor structures). Welding is excellent — spot-welded in body assembly, MIG-welded for heavier sections. The material's role is the deep-drawn or stamped panel, not the bar; the production economy is in the press tooling — once a die is cut, copies stamp at one to several per second. Modern automotive body sheet has migrated to higher-strength bake-hardenable, dual-phase, and TRIP grades, but the deep-drawing-grade low-carbon sheet remains the canonical white-goods, file-cabinet, and Tolix-chair material.

Mechanical

tensile strength · MPa320
yield strength · MPa200
elastic modulus · GPa205
elongation · %38
r value plastic strain ratio1.7
n value strain hardening0.22

source: MakeItFrom (AISI 1008/1010 cold-rolled sheet); EN 10130 DC04 datasheet (industry-canonical)

Thermal

melting point · °C1515
thermal conductivity · W/m·K51.9

source: MakeItFrom (low-carbon steel)

Physical

density · kg/m³7860

source: ASM Handbook Vol. 1; MakeItFrom

Sustainability

embodied carbon · kg CO₂e/kg2.3
embodied carbon recycled · kg CO₂e/kg0.7
recyclabilityvery high — magnetic separation makes recovery trivial in an end-of-life vehicle or appliance, and the material grades back into the same family with minimal downcycling
biodegradableFalse
certificationsEN 10130 — Cold-rolled low-carbon steel flat products for cold forming, ASTM A1008 — Standard Specification for Steel, Sheet, Cold-Rolled, Carbon, Structural, High-Strength Low-Alloy, AISI 1008 / 1010 — designation for low-carbon cold-rolled sheet
localityglobally produced; the largest mills are in China, Japan, South Korea, the EU, and the US; auto-body steel is supplied by the same mills that supply white-goods sheet

source: Editorial estimate from ICE / Granta CES EduPack class data — cold-rolled low-carbon sheet sits slightly above hot-rolled bar because the cold-rolling adds energy. Recycled content ranges 25–95% depending on EAF vs. BF route; the figure below assumes the common EAF-rich auto-body mix.

visual: bright cold-roll surface as supplied — an even slightly oily silver-gray sheen; takes paint, primer, and zinc plating without preparation beyond degreasing; develops orange flash rust within hours of exposure to humid air if unprotected. The pressed-steel signature is the rounded crease — deep-drawn corners want a generous radius, and the visible curvature of a refrigerator door or a Tolix-chair seat is a direct readout of the die geometry.
tactile: thin, springy under the hand; the panel rings like a drum when struck; the cold-rolled surface is smooth and slick where 1018 hot-rolled is gritty
weight perception: light per panel area, but heavy in aggregate — a deep-drawn refrigerator door weighs less than its iron-framed predecessor, but a Model T body shell is still a substantial fraction of the car's weight
acoustic: ringing — pressed-steel panels are notorious resonators (the engineered solution is sound-deadening pads bonded to the back, the canonical place to find them is the inner door panel of a car)

Penny Sparke (living — quote)

With improved methods of steel pressing, the 'white' goods or kitchen appliances they produced changed from having an iron frame to being made entirely without joints.

Sparke, Design in Context (Bloomsbury, 1991 [first published Quarto, 1987]), Chapter 5, 'Industry, Technology and Design,' on the migration of sheet-metal stamping technique from automobile production (Ford, GM, Chrysler) to white-goods production (Frigidaire, Kelvinator) in 1930s America. The seam-free pressed steel skin is what made the modernist refrigerator look like a single object rather than a furnished cabinet. Penny Sparke verified living 2026-04-28.

Penny Sparke (living — quote)

Henry Ford's ability to combine three factors: the inclusion of armory practice in his manufacturing; the use of sheet-metal stamping; and the use of line assembly. He evolved a system of manufacture that perfected the concept of standardization, expressed in his belief that all his cars should look identical.

Sparke, Design in Context (Bloomsbury, 1991), Chapter 2, 'Mechanization and Design 1830–1914,' section 'The American automobile industry,' on the Model T as the canonical pressed-steel-body application. Sparke names sheet-metal stamping as the central enabling technique, alongside armory practice and the assembly line — the three factors that together produce Fordism. Penny Sparke verified living 2026-04-28.

PBR starter values

finish · metallic — open for table, JSON, host snippets, downloads

Principled BSDF defaults derived from the sphere metallic finish. Reasonable seed for Blender, Substance, Keyshot, Rhino — tune per material. Or grab the whole library at once: ForMaterials library →

# finish:                   metallic
albedo                      #3a3a3a
metallic                    1.00
roughness                   0.25
ior                         1.45
transmission                0.00
clearcoat                   0.00
sheen                       0.00
anisotropic                 0.00

copy as JSON

{
  "albedo": "#3a3a3a",
  "metallic": 1.0,
  "roughness": 0.25,
  "ior": 1.45,
  "transmission": 0.0,
  "clearcoat": 0.0,
  "sheen": 0.0,
  "anisotropic": 0.0
}

Blender 4.x Python

# Blender 4.x — Principled BSDF
# Steel, Cold-Rolled Deep-Drawing Sheet (AISI 1008/1010 / EN DC04) · finish: metallic
import bpy
mat = bpy.data.materials.new(name="mat_steel_sheet_drawing")
mat.use_nodes = True
bsdf = mat.node_tree.nodes["Principled BSDF"]
bsdf.inputs["Base Color"].default_value         = (0.0423, 0.0423, 0.0423, 1.0)
bsdf.inputs["Metallic"].default_value           = 1.000
bsdf.inputs["Roughness"].default_value          = 0.250
bsdf.inputs["IOR"].default_value                = 1.450
bsdf.inputs["Transmission Weight"].default_value = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Coat Weight"].default_value        = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Sheen Weight"].default_value       = 0.000
bsdf.inputs["Anisotropic"].default_value        = 0.000

KeyShot Python (lux)

# KeyShot 11+ — lux Python API, Generic material
# Steel, Cold-Rolled Deep-Drawing Sheet (AISI 1008/1010 / EN DC04) · finish: metallic
# Run from Window → Scripting Console
import lux
mat = lux.createMaterial(name="mat_steel_sheet_drawing", materialType="Generic")
mat.setProperty("diffuse",      (58, 58, 58))   # 8-bit sRGB
mat.setProperty("metallic",     1.000)
mat.setProperty("roughness",    0.250)
mat.setProperty("indexOfRefraction", 1.450)
mat.setProperty("transparency", 0.000)
mat.setProperty("coatingWeight", 0.000)

Substance pbrMetalRough

{
  "_format": "Substance Designer / Painter \u2014 pbrMetalRough constants",
  "_about": "Steel, Cold-Rolled Deep-Drawing Sheet (AISI 1008/1010 / EN DC04) \u00b7 finish: metallic",
  "baseColor": {
    "r": 0.0423,
    "g": 0.0423,
    "b": 0.0423
  },
  "metallic": 1.0,
  "roughness": 0.25,
  "ior": 1.45,
  "opacity": 1.0,
  "anisotropyLevel": 0.0,
  "_notes": "Channels listed are the standard Substance pbrMetalRough output. Drop into a Uniform Color node per channel, or as the constant input on a layered stack."
}

glTF 2.0 Metallic-Roughness

{
  "asset": {
    "version": "2.0",
    "generator": "ForMatter"
  },
  "materials": [
    {
      "name": "mat_steel_sheet_drawing",
      "pbrMetallicRoughness": {
        "baseColorFactor": [
          0.0423,
          0.0423,
          0.0423,
          1.0
        ],
        "metallicFactor": 1.0,
        "roughnessFactor": 0.25
      },
      "extensions": {
        "KHR_materials_ior": {
          "ior": 1.45
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}

USD Preview Surface

# USD Preview Surface — UsdShade.MaterialLook prim attributes
# Steel, Cold-Rolled Deep-Drawing Sheet (AISI 1008/1010 / EN DC04) · finish: metallic
def Material "mat_steel_sheet_drawing" {
    token outputs:surface.connect = </mat_steel_sheet_drawing/PreviewSurface.outputs:surface>

    def Shader "PreviewSurface" {
        uniform token info:id = "UsdPreviewSurface"
        color3f inputs:diffuseColor = (0.0423, 0.0423, 0.0423)
        float   inputs:metallic     = 1.000
        float   inputs:roughness    = 0.250
        float   inputs:ior          = 1.450
        float   inputs:opacity      = 1.000
        float   inputs:clearcoat    = 0.000
        token   outputs:surface
    }
}

↓ download glTF material

ProcessSheet-Metal Bending · Laser Cutting · Water-Jet Cutting · MIG Welding · Powder Coating · Paint Application (Brush, Roller, Spray)

Used inChair · Extruded-Aluminum Furniture

Substitutes

Steel 1018 (Mild Steel)

Aluminum 5052

Stainless Steel 304

Finishes that suit this material

Chrome plate (decorative) · mirror

Second life

repairabilityhigh — sheet-metal repair (welding, mechanical fasteners, panel-replacement) is routine in automotive and appliance contexts.

recyclabilityvery high — ferrous scrap, the most-recycled industrial material globally.

disposal pathferrous scrap dealer.

typical longevity30 years (typical)

failure modes

rust in untreated outdoor service (the limiting failure mode for cold-rolled sheet)
fatigue at deep-drawn cup walls
embrittlement at heat-affected zones of welded panels

ASM Handbook Vol. 1; AISI low-carbon-sheet specifications.

In the collection

Smithsonian American Art Museum
Famous Selection, from "The Deceiver and the Deceived" series, Harriete Estel Berman · 1995–1996
Vintage steel dollhouses, tins, and aluminum rivets. Accession 1997.51. One hundred forty images of women cut from printed steel containers, disassembled and folded into fan shapes on a sheet-metal brake — recycled drawn-sheet steel turned back into sculptural form.

Citations

makeitfrom.com — SAE AISI 1008 G10080 Carbon Steel
standard · EN 10130 — Cold-rolled low-carbon steel flat products for cold forming, technical delivery conditions
standard · ASTM A1008 / A1008M — Standard Specification for Steel, Sheet, Cold-Rolled, Carbon, Structural, High-Strength Low-Alloy
book · Sparke, Design in Context (Bloomsbury, 1991), Chapter 2 — Ford Model T and the canonical sheet-metal-stamping application; Chapter 5 — the migration of pressed-steel technique from automobile to white-goods production.
book · ASM Handbook Vol. 1 — Properties and Selection: Irons, Steels, and High-Performance Alloys (ASM International, 1990) — section on sheet-steel grades for forming.

Concordance

House vocabulary — terms ForMatter uses with intent.

anisotropic: Direction-dependent. Wood reads differently along the grain than across it; rolled steel is stiffer along the rolling direction. The Principled-BSDF anisotropic input rotates the highlight to match.
anodize: Electrochemical oxide layer grown on aluminum (Type II / III), titanium, or niobium. Type II accepts dye for color; titanium / niobium use voltage-driven thin-film interference instead of dye. The CMF entry covers the seal step that locks the color in.
application: What the thing IS, in the world. The third entity, peer of material and process. A water bottle, a chair, an extruded-aluminum profile.
BRDF: Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function. The math behind how a surface returns light for any incoming and outgoing direction. The PBR model is a parameterized BRDF.
channeled: A voice block written within a dead author's philosophy, marked and cited. Distinct from a verbatim quote. Roland Barthes channeled on PMMA reads like Barthes; the citation attributes the lineage.
CMF: Color, Material, Finish — the trio designers specify together when handing a part off for production. ForMatter's Finish entity is the F in CMF: 10 categories — polish / anodize / patina / plate / coating / texture / cut / mold_finish / glaze / stone_finish — and entries under each. Every finish entry pairs to the materials and processes it suits.
choral fugue: ForMatter's register. Subject stated plainly (freshman tier), answered in technical and sensorial registers, countersubjects from linked processes and applications, citations as final stretto. Voice blocks where canon attaches.
clearcoat: A second specular layer over the base surface. Glossy plastics and lacquered woods get a clearcoat term in the PBR table. IOR 1.5 by default.
compatibility (process): Each process entry lists which materials it can work. The cross-ref renders as sphere pills so the gallery feeling extends inward.
confidence: Each entry tagged high / medium / low. A senior's low-confidence-with-three-citations beats a freshman's high-confidence-with-none. The label is a contract with the reader, not a brag.
crystalline (finish): A faceted-surface read — gemstones, glassy minerals, ice. Drives PBR defaults: IOR 2.42 (diamond), transmission 1.0, low roughness.
derive_pbr(): The build's single source of truth — sphere palette + finish enum → Principled-BSDF starter values. One function feeds the entry-page table, the per-host snippets, the glTF export, and the Three.js Live Preview.
finish (entity): ForMatter's CMF layer — surface treatments and conditions a designer chooses for a given material and process. Categories: polish, anodize, patina, plate, coating, texture, cut, mold_finish, glaze, stone_finish. Distinct from the sphere `finish` enum (metallic / matte / glossy / etc.) which is the visual register of the proxy.
freshman / senior register: Two registers in every entry — the plain freshman description and the technical / sensorial one. Same database, two readers, no extra subscription.
glTF: GL Transmission Format — the open 3D-asset standard every modern app reads. ForMatter emits a .gltf material doc per material. Open standard, designer-friendly handoff.
IOR: Index of Refraction. How much light bends entering the surface. Air 1.0, water 1.33, glass 1.5, diamond 2.42. Drives transmission and the specular term.
iridescent (finish): Hue-shifted accent over base. Anodized titanium and niobium, opal, paraíba. Drives PBR defaults: low metalness, full iridescence, clearcoat.
iridescence: Thin-film interference layer over the base material. KHR_materials_iridescence in glTF, MeshPhysicalMaterial.iridescence in Three.js. Tunable from the FOCUS slider on iridescent / pearlescent entries. The ior and thickness range together set the visible color sweep — opal uses a 100–800 nm thickness range (film, not wavelength) to span the full visible band.
lite-PBR: ForMatter's PBR approach — Principled-BSDF starter values per entry, no measured BRDFs, no commercial assets. Reasonable defaults from the finish enum, per-entry numeric overrides where you have a real reason.
Live Preview: The Three.js shader ball that replaces the static CSS sphere on every entry page. One render path for every category — metals, woods, polymers, ceramics, paints, textiles, gemstones, glass. Same derive_pbr() values, real-time lit by a synthetic studio environment, draggable. Optional — toggle in Preferences.
material: What the thing is MADE OF. The first entity. Aluminum 6061, white oak, soda-lime glass.
metallic (finish): Specular highlight, deep shadow rim. Drives PBR defaults: metalness 1, low roughness, IOR 1.45. Polished steel, gold, copper.
mood board: Folded into the Project workspace at /project.html. The mood-board upload, palette extraction, character chips, and matcher results all live alongside the collected items grid and the save .formatter / save PDF / open .formatter actions — one feature, one page.
Ollama: Local-LLM scaffold on the Project page. Off by default. When toggled on in Preferences AND Ollama is reachable at localhost:11434, the natural-language input box ('something soft and warm with a wet read') asks the model to translate the description into character-chip toggles. Never invents material properties; the LLM only translates intent into existing chip vocabulary. The keyword fast-path (chips alone, no LLM) is the default — see suite-wide ai-integration pattern.
project: The full workspace at /project.html — collected materials, processes, applications, finishes plus an optional mood-board image whose dominant colors search the library for matches. Save / open .formatter files round-trip the project state.
patina: A chemical color shift on metal — heat-blue on steel, fume-black on silver, verdigris on copper, gun-blue on tool steel, ferric on copper. CMF-layer entry; cited by both the material and the process pages that produce it.
PBR: Physically-Based Rendering. The shading model every modern 3D app uses, parameterized by metallic / roughness / IOR / transmission / clearcoat / sheen. ForMatter publishes starter values for every material entry.
SPI mold finish: Society of the Plastics Industry mold-cavity finish standard. A1 / A2 / A3 (diamond polish, mirror), B1 / B2 / B3 (paper, semi-gloss), C1 / C2 / C3 (stone, matte), D1 / D2 / D3 (dry blast, textured). The finish prints from the mold cavity onto the molded part — a designer picks the SPI grade with the molder when specifying the tool.
Principled BSDF: Blender's name for the consolidated PBR shader. Most other apps ship the same shader under different names (Standard Surface, ShaderGraph, Substance). One node, every output.
process: How the material is MADE INTO the thing. The second entity. Cast, machined, kerf-bent, anodized, planished, granulated. Process is a peer of material, not a footnote.
quote: A voice block carrying a verbatim quotation from a living author, with citation. Distinct from a channeled block. Living = quote only; the rule is enforced at the schema layer.
roughness: Microsurface scatter. 0 is mirror-smooth; 1 is fully diffuse. Most real surfaces sit between 0.2 and 0.8.
sphere proxy: ForMatter's visible-character stand-in for every material. CSS-gradient driven by the entry's palette and finish, not a baked render. Honest about being a proxy, scales cheaply, tweakable in one place.
substitute: A peer material that could fill a similar role. Cross-references render as sphere pills inside an entry — the gallery feeling extends inward.
transmission: How much light passes through. 1 is fully transparent; 0 is opaque. Glass, gemstones, clear plastics carry transmission.
PVD: Physical Vapor Deposition — vacuum-chamber sputter or cathodic-arc deposition of a thin ceramic film onto a metal substrate. The CMF-layer's modern coating chemistry: TiN (gold), ZrN (champagne), CrN (pewter), TiCN (warm bronze / rose-gold), AlTiN (charcoal-anthracite, near-black), DLC (deep black). Hard, doesn't tarnish, paint-thin.
VDI 3400: German engineering reference standard for mold-cavity texture (Erodieren bearbeitete Werkstückoberflächen). The full scale runs reference plates 0–45 by Ra value; production specs typically draw from 12–45 because plates 0–11 require diamond-mirror polish on the mold cavity and are rarely commissioned in commercial tooling. Pairs with the SPI standard; both define what gets cut into the mold.
voice block: A versal block where a real authored voice attaches to the material or process. Schema-tagged with status (living / dead) and mode (quote / channeled). Citations always.
woodgrain (finish): Directional sheen with grain ring. Drives PBR defaults: anisotropic 0.6, medium roughness, no metalness. Every wood entry.

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Steel, Cold-Rolled Deep-Drawing Sheet (AISI 1008/1010 / EN DC04)

Mechanical

Thermal

Physical

Sustainability

PBR starter values

Second life

In the collection

Citations

Further reading

Concordance

ForMatter

Why this exists

Sources

Rules of the house

Sister apps

Preferences