This article discusses selected highlights of thermodynamic relationships during solidification and nucleation kinetics behavior in connection with the basis of nucleation treatments, such as grain refinement and inoculation, to provide a summary of nucleation phenomena during casting. The article describes nucleation phenomenon such as homogeneous nucleation and heterogeneous nucleation. It examines various grain refinement models, such as the carbide-boride model, the free growth model, and the constitutional undercooling model. The article concludes with information on the thermal analysis techniques for assessing grain-refining characteristics during master alloy processing.

Grain refinement in aluminum casting alloys tends to reduce the amount of porosity and the size of the pores and to improve mechanical properties, especially fatigue strength. This article provides information on measurement of grain size in alloys and describes the mechanisms of grain refinement in aluminum casting alloys. It reviews the use of boron and titanium as a grain refiner for aluminum casting alloys. The article discusses the best practices for grain refinement in various aluminum casting alloys. These include aluminum-silicon casting alloys, aluminum-silicon-copper casting alloys, aluminum-silicon-copper casting alloys, aluminum-zinc-magnesium casting alloys, and aluminum-magnesium casting alloys. The article also examines the benefits of grain refinement in aluminum casting alloys.

This article focuses on the pack-cementation coatings, in particular, halide-activated pack cementation coatings on nickel alloys. It also describes the thermodynamics and kinetics of, and simultaneous deposition of various types of, pack cementation processes. These include pack aluminizing, chromizing, and siliconizing.

Pack cementation is the most widely employed method of diffusion coating. This article briefly reviews pack cementation processes of aluminizing, chromizing, and siliconizing. It contains tables that list typical characteristics of pack cementation processes and commercial applications of pack cementation aluminizing, which is used to improve the performance of steels in high-temperature corrosive environments.

This article focuses on aspects that are important for the commercial production of castings. It discusses the modification process in hypoeutectic and eutectic alloys that differ only in the relative volume fraction of primary aluminum and aluminum-silicon eutectic. The article explains how modification changes porosity formation in a casting. It describes the mechanisms responsible for silicon modification, as well as the modifications and changes in eutectic nucleation and the eutectic grain structure. The article reviews the usage of strontium in foundry practices. The growth of silicon eutectic is described to explain effects ancillary to silicon modification. The article also examines the effects of elements, such as phosphorus, antimony, bismuth, magnesium, boron, and calcium, on the silicon structure.

Chemical vapor deposition (CVD) involves the formation of a coating by the reaction of the coating substance with the substrate. Serving as an introduction to CVD, the article provides information on metals, ceramics, and diamond films formed by the CVD process. It further discusses the characteristics of different pack cementation processes, including aluminizing, siliconizing, chromizing, boronizing, and multicomponent coating.

This article provides information on the most frequently used atmospheres in commercial sintering of powder metallurgy iron and steel materials. These include endothermic, exothermic, dissociated ammonia, pure hydrogen, and nitrogen-base atmospheres. The article discusses sintering of iron and iron-graphite powder, iron-copper and iron-copper graphite, and alloy steels. The effects of various sinter conditions on the amount of combined carbon formed in the steel are also discussed. The article concludes with information on high-temperature sintering and sinter hardening.

This article focuses on mechanical testing characterization of blended elemental powder metallurgy (PM) titanium alloys and prealloyed PM titanium alloys. It examines the tensile properties, fracture toughness, stress-corrosion threshold resistance, fatigue strength, crack propagation properties, and processing-microstructure-property relationships of these alloys. The article also reviews five considerations for powder process selection.