This chapter discusses the work of a famous stainless steel pioneer, Edward G. Budd. The discussion covers his early years, his automobile body business, the arrival of novel kind of stainless steel in America, Earl Ragsdale's shot weld patent, the world's first stainless steel airplane, the world's first stainless steel rubber-tired train, the Flying Yankee, the Mark Twain Zephyr, the development of the Budd Company in the war years and postwar years, and a review of the Budd Era.

This chapter describes some of the technological milestones of the early 20th century, including the invention of tungsten carbide tool steel, the use of age-hardening aluminum in the Wright Flyer , the development of a new heat treating process for aluminum alloys, and Ford’s pioneering use of weight-saving vanadium alloys in Model T cars. It explains how interest in chromium alloys spread throughout the world, spurring the development of commercial stainless steels. The chapter concludes with a bullet point timeline of early 20th century achievements and a brief assessment of more recent innovations.

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.

A product pedigree describes its design and how it was built and shows that it was built in accordance with the drawings and other documentation defining the product configuration. Evaluating the pedigree of a failed product can help to rule in or rule out hypothesized failure causes. This chapter describes various areas that can be examined by the failure analysis team to assess the pedigree of the failed system. If the failure analysis team suspects product pedigree anomalies it should confirm conformance through independent means.

This chapter provides a general description of materials and methods for manufacturing high-performance composites. The materials covered are polymer matrices and prepreg materials and the methods include infusion processes, composite-toughening methods, matrix-toughening methods, and dispersed-phase toughening. In addition, the chapter provides information on interlayer-toughened composites and honeycomb or foam structure composite materials. It also discusses the processes in optical microscopy of composite materials.

Many companies conduct only metallurgical evaluations in the wake of failures, discovering nothing more than the physical mechanism by which the failure occurred. The origin of failures, however, is often complex, involving not only physical mechanisms, but also human behavior and latent factors. Failures may also involve multiple parts, entire machines, or processes of any size and shape. The chapter examines the unique aspects of many failures and explains how they can sometimes be traced to systemic issues. It also covers the reasons why products fail, including improper service or operation, improper maintenance, improper testing, assembly errors, fabrication or manufacturing errors, and design errors. The case of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse is presented to illustrate the consequence of overlooked factors, in this case, wind dynamics, and the importance of identifying root causes to prevent repeat failures.

This chapter examines the early literature on stainless steel to gain an understanding of the state-of-the-art of stainless steel as it progressed through the first 37 years after the discoveries made in Sheffield and Essen.

Titanium castings are used in a wide range of aerospace, chemical process, marine, biomedical, and automotive applications. This chapter provides an overview of titanium casting and associated processes and how they compare with other manufacturing methods. It also discusses the role heat treating and its effect on the tensile properties of different titanium alloys.

Stainless steels have a wide variety of applications for household products, food-handling equipment, major appliances, medical equipment, and industrial equipment. Stainless is also featured in many architectural designs and monuments. Many of the most important applications of stainless steel can be found in the transportation industry, where both the cutlery martensitic and the chromium-nickel austenitic stainless steels have been used. This chapter provides a detailed discussion on these applications.

A large portion of cast and wrought product production is directed to the ground transportation market. Aluminum castings, extrusions, forgings, and rolled products all find wide application for trucks, trains, subways, and buses and are discussed in this chapter.

Fracture control can be defined as a concerted effort to maintain operating safety without catastrophic failure by fracture. It requires an understanding of how cracks affect structural integrity and strength and the time that a crack can grow before it exceeds permissible size. The chapter describes some of methods used to determine maximum permissible crack size and predict growth rates. It explains how the information can then be used to control fractures through periodic inspection, fail-safe features, mandated retirement, and proof testing. It presents a number of fracture control plans optimized for different circumstances, examines the damage tolerance requirements used by different industries, and discusses various approaches for fatigue design.

The coordinate measuring machine (CMM) is used for three-dimensional inspection of both in-process and finished parts. This chapter provides a detailed account of the operating principles, measurement techniques, capabilities, and applications of CMMs. The types of CMMs are described. Vertical CMMs include cantilever-type, bridge-type, and gantry CMMs; horizontal CMMs, such as the horizontal-arm type, are also covered. The CMM application for geometric measurement, contour measurement, and specialized surface measurement are discussed.

The hidden factory refers to the activities associated with scrap and rework. This chapter presents a rudimentary understanding of what sorts of things the hidden factory is doing, focusing on how to get one's arms around the rejections that occur most frequently or have the highest cost. It provides information on the use of Pareto analyses from both frequency-of-occurrence and cost perspectives to target specific areas for improvement.