Ferritic steels cannot be hardened or strengthened by heat treatment, but have good resistance to stress-corrosion cracking. They can be cold worked and softened by annealing. While not as strong or corrosion resistant as austenitic grades, the ferritic grades generally have better engineering properties. Though generally very weldable, some ferritic steel grades can be prone to sensitization of the weld heat-affected zone and weld metal hot cracking. Weldability limitations, therefore, restrict the use of these steels to thinner gauges.