Chapter 1: Introduction

This chapter presents the history of stainless steel and provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book. This book covers a broad spectrum of historical events, many of which have not been touched upon in other works on stainless steel. It includes the discoveries of the various metallic elements that are used in the various alloys of stainless steel and discusses numerous experiments conducted during the 19th century with iron-base alloys containing chromium and carbon.