This chapter reviews materials issues encountered in joining, including challenges involved in welding of dissimilar metal combinations; joining of plastics by mechanical fastening, solvent and adhesive bonding, and welding; joining of thermoset and thermoplastic composite materials by mechanical fastening, adhesive bonding, and, for thermoplastic composites, welding; the making of glass-to-metal seals; and joining of oxide and nonoxide ceramics to themselves and to metals by solid-state processes and by brazing. The classification, types, applications, and the mechanism of each of these methods are covered. The factors influencing joint integrity and the main considerations in welding dissimilar metal combinations are also discussed.

Most integrated titanium mills have primary working equipment designed specifically for titanium. This chapter describes the forging, rolling, and extruding equipment used to produce titanium mill products and sheds light on the corresponding process, structure, property relationships.

This article describes key processing methods and related design, manufacturing, and application considerations for plastic parts and includes a discussion on materials and process selection methodology for plastics. The discussion covers the primary plastic processing methods and how each process influences part design and the properties of the plastic part. It also includes a brief description of functional requirements in process selection; an overview of various process effects and how they affect the functions and properties of the part; and the selection of processes for size, shape, and design detail factors.

Induction heating has found widespread use as a method to raise the temperature of a metal prior to forming or joining, or to change its metallurgical structure. However, induction heating has specialized capabilities that make it suitable for applications outside of metal treatment and fabrication. This chapter summarizes some of the special applications of induction heating, including those in the plastics, packaging, electronics, glass, chemical, and metal-finishing industries. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the application of induction heating for vacuum processes.

This chapter discusses the effect of fiber length and orientation on the strength and stiffness of discontinuous-fiber composites. It also describes several fabrication processes, including spray-up, compression molding, reaction injection molding, and injection molding.

This chapter discusses the properties and processing characteristics of glass, aramid, carbon, and ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene fibers and related product forms, including woven fabrics, prepreg, and reinforced mats. It also includes a review of fiber terminology as well as physical and mechanical property data for commercially important high-strength fibers.

Polymer-matrix composites are among the lightest structural materials in use today. They are also highly resistant to corrosion and fatigue and their load-carrying capabilities, such as strength and stiffness, can be tailored for specific applications. This chapter discusses the primary advantages and disadvantages of polymer-matrix composites, how they are produced, and how they perform in different applications. It describes the construction of laminates, the fibers and resins used, and the methods by which they are combined. It explains how strength, modulus, toughness, and high-temperature and corrosion behaviors are determined by the orientation, shape, and spacing of fibers, the number of plies, resin properties, and consolidation and forming methods. The chapter also covers secondary fabrication processes, such as thermoforming, machining, and joining, as well as production equipment and product forms, and include guidelines for optimizing tradeoffs when selecting fibers, resins, and production techniques.

This chapter discusses the composition, properties, and uses of crystalline ceramics, glasses, clay, and concrete mixes. It also discusses the carbon structure of diamond, graphite, fullerenes, and nanotubes.

This chapter discusses the types of fibers and matrix materials used in ceramic matrix composites and the role of interfacial coatings. It describes the methods used to produce ceramic composites, including powder processing, slurry infiltration and consolidation, polymer infiltration and pyrolysis, chemical vapor infiltration, directed metal oxidation, and liquid silicon infiltration.

Beryllium is an important additive in the production of amorphous metal alloys, achieving low density and high strength. It also plays a role in amorphous alloys that can be slowly cooled and still retain their amorphous structure. This chapter provides information on the development of amorphous alloys that contain beryllium and the applications for which they are suited.

This chapter examines the static, fatigue, and damage tolerance properties of glass, aramid, and carbon fiber systems. It also explains how delaminations, voids, porosity, fiber distortion, and fastener hole defects affect impact resistance and strength.

Transmitted-light methods reveal more details of the morphology of fiber-reinforced polymeric composites than are observable using any other available microscopy techniques. This chapter describes the various aspects relating to the selection and preparation of ultrathin-section specimens of fiber-reinforced polymeric composites for examination by transmitted-light microscopy techniques. The preparation steps covered are a selection of the rough section, preparation of the rough section for preliminary mounting, grinding and polishing the primary-mount first surface, mounting the first surface on a glass slide, and preparing the second surface (top surface). The optimization of microscope conditions and analysis of specimens by microscopy techniques are also covered. In addition, examples of composite ultrathin sections that are analyzed using transmitted-light microscopy contrast methods are shown throughout.

This chapter discusses design and certification considerations, including materials and process selection, the building block approach to certification, design allowables, and design guidelines. It also includes information on damage tolerance and environmental sensitivity.

Plastic gears are continuing to displace metal gears in applications ranging from automotive components to office automation equipment. This chapter discusses the characteristics, classification, advantages, and disadvantages of plastics for gear applications. It provides a comparison between the properties of metals and plastics for designing gears. The chapter reviews some of the commonly used plastic materials for gear applications including thermoplastic and thermoset gear materials. The chapter also describes the processes involved in plastic gear manufacturing.

Glasses and ceramics are susceptible to stress-corrosion cracking (SCC), as are metals, but the underlying mechanisms differ in many ways. One of the major differences stems from the lack of active dislocation motion that, in metals, serves to arrest cracks by reducing stress concentrations at flaw tips. As a result, even relatively small flaws (20 to 50 μm in radius) can cause glasses and ceramics to fail. This chapter examines the propensity of flaws to grow in glass and ceramic materials exposed to different environments, especially water, at stresses well below those that would produce immediate failure. It describes crack growth mechanisms, explains how to measure crack growth rates and predict time to failure, and provides crack growth data for a number of materials and environments.

This chapter describes the molecular structures and chemical reactions associated with the production of thermoset and thermoplastic components. It compares and contrasts the mechanical properties of engineering plastics with those of metals, and explains how fillers and reinforcements affect impact and tensile strength, shrinkage, thermal expansion, and thermal conductivity. It examines the relationship between tensile modulus and temperature, provides thermal property data for selected plastics, and discusses the effect of chemical exposure, operating temperature, and residual stress. The chapter also includes a section on the uses of thermoplastic and thermosetting resins and provides information on fabrication processes and fastening and joining methods.

This chapter consists of three parts. The first part provides data and guidelines for selecting materials and processing routes. It compares the basic properties of metals, ceramics, and polymers, identifies important measures of performance, and discusses manufacturing processes and their compatibility with specific materials. The chapter then presents general guidelines for selecting lightweight materials, and concludes with a review of lightweight metals, plastics, and composites used in automotive applications.

This article depicts typical fractographic features for a number of different composite materials, covering interlaminar and translaminar fracture characteristics in composite materials.