Premanent magnet refers to solid materials that have sufficiently high resistance to demagnetizing fields and sufficiently high magnetic flux output to provide useful and stable magnetic fields. Permanent magnet materials include a variety of alloys, intermetallics, and ceramics. This article discusses the composition, properties, and applications of permanent magnetic materials, such as hysteresis alloys used in motors. It primarily focuses on the stability of magnetic fields that influences reversible and irreversible losses in magnetization with time, and the choice of magnet material, component shape and magnetic circuit arrangement.

Superconductivity has been found in a wide range of materials, including pure metals, alloys, compounds, oxides, and organic materials. Providing information on the basic principles, this article discusses the theoretical background, types of superconductors, and critical parameters of superconductivity. It discusses the magnetic properties of selected superconductors and types of stabilization, including cryogenic stability, adiabatic stability, and dynamic stability. The article also focuses on alternating current losses in superconductors, including hysteresis loss, penetration loss, eddy current loss, and radio frequency loss. Furthermore, the article describes the flux pinning phenomenon and Josephson effects.

This article discusses the chief magnetic characteristics of permanent magnet materials. It provides a detailed description on nominal compositions; principal magnet designations; magnetic, physical, and mechanical properties; selection criteria; and applications of the permanent magnet materials, which include magnet steels, magnet alloys, alnico alloys, platinum-cobalt alloys, cobalt and rare-earth alloys, hard ferrites, iron-chromium-cobalt alloys, and neodymium-iron-boron alloys.

Magnetic field testing includes some widely used nondestructive evaluation methods to inspect magnetic materials for defects such as cracks, voids, and inclusions and to assess other material properties, such as grain size, texture, and hardness. This article discusses the principles of such defect detection, providing details on the origin, generation, and assessment of leakage field data. In addition, it discusses the metallurgical and magnetic properties of magnetic materials and the applications of magnetic field testing.

Magnetic field testing includes some widely used nondestructive evaluation methods to inspect magnetic materials for defects such as cracks, voids, and inclusions and to assess other material properties, such as grain size, texture, and hardness. This article discusses the principles of such defect detection, providing details on the origin, generation, and assessment of leakage field data. In addition, it discusses the metallurgical and magnetic properties of magnetic materials and the applications of magnetic field testing.

The term shape memory alloys (SMAs) refers to the group of metallic materials that demonstrate the ability to return to some previously defined shape or size when subjected to the appropriate thermal procedure. Materials that exhibit shape memory only upon heating are referred to as having a one-way shape memory. Some materials also undergo a change in shape upon recooling. These materials have a two-way shape memory. This article discusses the general characteristics of SMAs by using typical transformation versus temperature curve. It describes the processing, applications and properties (mechanical and physical) of commercial SMA alloys, namely nickel-titanium alloys and copper-base alloys.

In an induction heating system, thermal and electromagnetic properties of heated materials make the greatest impact on the heat transfer and performance of induction heating process. This article focuses on major thermal properties, namely, thermal conductivity, heat capacity, and specific heat. It describes the two important electromagnetic properties, electrical resistivity (electrical conductivity) and magnetic permeability, which posses the most pronounced effect on the performance of the induction heating system, its efficiency, and selection of main design parameters. The article also discusses the magnetic properties of diamagnetic, paramagnetic, ferromagnetic, ferrimagnetic, antiferromagnetic, and metamagnetic materials.

This article discusses the ferromagnetic properties of soft magnetic materials, explaining the effects of impurities, alloying elements, heat treatment, grain size, and grain orientation on soft magnetic materials. It describes the types of soft magnetic materials, which include high-purity iron, low-carbon irons, silicon (electrical) steels, nickel-iron alloys, iron-cobalt alloys, ferritic stainless steels, amorphous metals, and ferrites (ceramics). Finally, the article provides a short note on alloys for magnetic temperature compensation.

This article discusses the microstructural processes that take place during plastic deformation and presents a plain phenomenological and general description of the cyclic stress-strain (CSS) response. It emphasizes the microstructural aspects of cyclic loading on single-phase materials tested in initially soft, dislocation-poor conditions resulting from a prior heat treatment. The article discusses deformation-induced phase transformations in austenitic stainless steels and commercial age-hardened aluminum alloys. It describes the interaction of dislocations and the strengthening of second-phase particles. The article also provides a description of the framework used to model the CSS response on a physical basis.

The design of components against fatigue failure may involve several considerations of irregular loading, variable temperature, and environment. This article focuses on design considerations against fatigue related to material performance under mechanical loading at constant temperature. It reviews the traditional methods of fatigue design on smooth and notched components. The article discusses high-cycle fatigue in terms of fatigue strength and tensile strength, mean stress effects, stress concentration, and multiaxial fatigue. It describes low-cycle fatigue in terms of deformation behavior and concludes with a discussion on lifetime analysis based on a strain approach.

This article discusses the history of shape memory alloys (SMAs) along with their properties, capabilities, and crystallography, including phase transformations that occur during thermal treatment. It describes the thermomechanical behaviors of SMAs and explains how to characterize them using differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) techniques as well as other methods. The article examines the most common shape memory alloys, namely, nickel-titanium and copper-base SMAs, and provides information on their respective properties.

Fatigue crack initiation is an important aspect of materials performance in design. This article summarizes some fundamental concepts and procedures for the fatigue life prediction of relatively homogeneous, wrought metals when a major portion of total life is exhausted in crack initiation. It presents an overview of the strain-based, as opposed to stress-based, criterion of material behavior and fatigue analysis. The article describes the cyclic stress-strain behavior of metals to illustrate the inadequacy of the monotonic or tensile stress-strain curve in accounting for material instabilities caused by cyclic deformations. It discusses the effect of mean stress on fatigue life and presents the analysis of cumulative fatigue damage. The article concludes with examples of application techniques for fatigue life prediction.

Powder metallurgy (PM) techniques are effective in making magnetically soft components for use in magnetic part applications. This article provides an account of the factors affecting magnetism, permeability, and hysteresis losses. It includes information on the magnetic properties of PM materials that are used in the magnetic part applications, namely, pure iron, phosphorus irons, ferritic stainless steels, 50 nickel-50 iron, and silicon irons. The article describes the factors that affect and optimize magnetic properties. It contains a table that lists the magnetic properties possible in metal injection molding parts. The article also discusses ferromagnetic cores used in alternating current applications and some permanent magnets, such as rare earth-cobalt magnets and neodymium-iron-boron (neo) magnets.

Martensite is a metastable structure that forms during athermal (nonisothermal) conditions. This article reviews the crystallographic theory, morphologies, orientation relationships, habit plane, and transformation temperature of ferrous martensite microstructures. It examines the stages of the tempering process involved in ferrous martensite. The article also describes the formation of the martensite structure in nonferrous systems. It concludes with a discussion on shape memory alloys.

Magnetically soft materials are characterized by their low coercivity, an essential requirement for irons and steels selected for any application involving electromagnetic induction cycling. This article provides information on ferromagnetic material properties and how they are affected by impurities, alloying additions, heat treatment, residual stress, and grain size. It also describes classification and testing methods for magnetically soft materials such as high-purity iron, low-carbon steels, silicon steels, iron-aluminum alloys, nickel-iron alloys, iron-cobalt alloys, ferrites, and stainless steels. The article also addresses corrosion resistance and provides insights on the selection of alloys for power generation applications, including motors, generators, and transformers. A short note on the design and fabrication of magnetic cores is also included.

This article discusses the influence of microstructure and chemical composition on the physical properties of cast iron. The physical properties include density, thermal expansion, thermal conductivity, specific heat, electrical conductivity, magnetic properties, and acoustic properties. The article describes the properties of liquid iron in terms of surface energy, contact angles, and viscosity. The conductive properties such as thermal and electrical conductivity, of the main metallographic phases present in cast iron are presented in a table. The article discusses the magnetic properties of cast iron in terms of magnetic intensity, magnetic induction, magnetic permeability, remanent magnetism, coercive force, and hysteresis loss. It concludes with a discussion on the acoustic properties of cast iron.

Inspection involves two types of testing, namely, destructive and non-destructive. This article provides an overview of the various inspection plans, such as first-article inspection and periodic tests done by destructive metallurgical testing and the final inspection done by the application of non-destructive technology. It describes the process involved in destructive methods, such as surface hardness measurement, induction hardening pattern and heat-affected zone inspection, and the examination of microstructure before and after induction hardening. It also discusses non-destructive evaluation techniques for defect detection and microstructure characterization as well as non-destructive evaluation for real-time monitoring of induction process.

This article describes the phenomena of crack initiation and early growth. It examines specimen design and preparation as well as the apparatus used in crack initiation testing. The article provides descriptions of the various commercially available fatigue testing machines: axial fatigue testing machines and bending fatigue machines. Load cells, grips and alignment devices, extensometry and strain measuring devices, environmental chambers, graphic recorders, furnaces, and heating systems of ancillary equipment are discussed. The article presents technologies available to accomplish closed loop control of materials testing systems in performing standard materials tests and for the development of custom testing applications. It explores the advanced software tools for materials testing. The article includes a description of baseline isothermal fatigue testing, creep-fatigue interaction, and thermomechanical fatigue. The effects of various variables on fatigue resistance and guidelines for fatigue testing are also presented.

Magnetic flux controllers are materials other than the copper coil that are used in induction systems to alter the flow of the magnetic field. This article describes the effects of magnetic flux controllers on common coil styles, namely, outer diameter coils, inner diameter coils, and linear coils. It provides information on the role of magnetic flux controllers for whole-body and local area mass-heating applications, continuous induction tube welding, seam-annealing inductors, and various induction melting systems, namely, channel-type, crucible-type, and cold crucible systems. The article also describes the benefits of the flux controllers for induction heat treating processes such as single-shot and scanning.

This article discusses the principles and limitations of micromagnetic techniques, namely, magnetic Barkhausen noise (MBN) and magnetoacoustic emission (MAE). It also discusses various factors limiting the establishment of acceptance criteria for test components as they pertain to the successful application of MBN measurement and signal interpretation. The article provides an overview of basic magnetic phenomena and dynamics in ferromagnetic materials that underlie the origin of MBN emissions. It describes the changes in the domain structure of the ferromagnetic material under an applied external field. The relationship between uniaxial stress and angular-dependent strain is also discussed. The influence of stress on domain walls, and therefore, the generation of Barkhausen noise are described. The article also describes the directional and angular MBN measurements and provides information on detection, angular dependence, and advanced analysis methods of MBN emissions.