This chapter discusses steel’s compositions, metallurgical phases, microstructures, and heat treatments. It then presents the structure-property relationships of steel. The chapter describes the deformation and strengthening mechanisms of steel. It also presents an overview of deformation processing and annealing.

Dual-phase (DP) steels have the widest usage in the automotive industry because of their excellent combination of strength and ductility. This chapter presents the composition, microstructure, mechanical properties, formability, and attributes of DP steels. It also discusses the basic approaches for the commercial production of DP steels.

This chapter presents a discussion on the compositions, microstructures, processing, deformation mechanism, mechanical properties, formability, and attributes of complex-phase steels.

This chapter presents the composition, microstructure, processing, deformation mechanism, mechanical properties, formability, and attributes of transformation-induced plasticity steels.

Martensitic (MS) steel is produced by quenching carbon steel from the austenitic phase into martensite. This chapter presents the compositions, microstructures, processing, deformation mechanism, mechanical properties, hot forming process, and attributes of MS steels.

This chapter presents an overview on the twins and stacking faults. It then provides an overview of the compositions, microstructures, thermodynamics, processing, deformation mechanism, mechanical properties, formability, and special attributes of twinning-induced plasticity steels.

Austenitic stainless steels are iron-base alloys containing more than 50% Fe, 15 to 26% Cr, and less than 45% Ni. This chapter provides a discussion on the types, compositions, microstructures, processing, deformation mechanism, mechanical properties, formability, and special attributes of austenitic stainless steels.

This chapter presents a review of some of the global development and deployment of advanced high-strength steels (AHSS). It discusses collaboration projects between government, industry, and academia and summarizes research that has focused on the influence of alloy composition on the microstructure evolution during plastic deformation and the resulting mechanical properties.

This chapter examines the microstructure of metallic components produced by casting and compares them with microstructures achieved by means of powder metallurgy. It shows how metals and alloys obtained by various processing routes differ in terms of grain size, secondary phases, oxide and carbide dispersions, porosity, dendritic formation, and properties such as hardness, toughness, tensile strength, and yield strength.

Phase diagrams serve as a map to the phases present in an alloy at different temperatures and compositions. They also help in assessing mechanical properties, selecting heat treat temperatures, warning of possible solidification problems, and identifying routes for creating desired microstructures. This chapter familiarizes readers with the information contained in binary phase diagrams and the methods used to extract it. It explains how thermocouple measurements are used to determine liquidus, solidus, and eutectic reaction lines, how differential scanning calorimetry shows where phase reactions occur, and how x-ray diffraction identifies the actual phases present. It demonstrates the use of tie lines for determining phase composition at different temperatures and the application of the level rule to calculate phase fractions. It also discusses the CALPHAD method and presents computed binary phase diagrams that account for the presence of inclusions, oxygen content, and secondary phases.

This appendix contains sample problems with worked solutions pertaining to the use of binary phase diagrams. The problems require the determination of favorable temperatures and compositions, the amount and composition of phases in an alloy at a given temperature, the amount of a certain phase in different steels, and the microstructure developed in different alloys.

This chapter describes aluminum applications in aircraft and space vehicles and the special alloys, tempers, and product forms required to meet the unique challenges of flight. It focuses on wrought alloys and products that comprise the bulk of aluminum aircraft structure. The chapter also provides a list of the aerospace alloys and their chemical compositions in common use as well as their application on aircraft.

This appendix tabulates chemical composition limits for commonly used wrought aluminum alloys registered with the Aluminum Association (AA).

This appendix tabulates chemical composition limits for commonly used aluminum casting alloys registered with the Aluminum Association (AA).

This chapter familiarizes readers with the use of Fick’s laws of diffusion in heat treating, coating, and other metallurgical processes. It contains worked solutions to nearly 30 problems requiring the calculation of activation energy, diffusion coefficient, concentration level, surface layer thickness, case depth, and processing time and temperature. The selected problems deal with various types of iron, steel, and nonferrous alloys and processes ranging from aluminizing, chromizing, carburizing, and plasma nitriding to hydrogen dissipation, decarburizing, and oxidation. A few diffusion problems involving single-crystal silicon are also included.