This chapter provides insights into the work of a stainless steel pioneer, Harry Brearley. It explains how Brearley's early life and experience led him to become a self-trained chemist and metallurgist.

This chapter covers the biographies and literary and research work of pioneers in metals research, namely Henry Marion Howe, Albert Sauveur, Isaiah (Zay) Jeffries, Paul Dyer Merica, Edgar C. Bain, Samuel Leslie Hoyt, and Francis L. VerSnyder.

Beryllium is the 44th most abundant element on Earth, with an estimated concentration of six parts per million in the Earth’s crust. It is found in various forms in more than 100 minerals, two of which, beryl and bertrandite, account for most of the beryllium produced throughout the world. This chapter describes where and how beryllium is obtained and provides facts, figures, and insights on global supply and demand.

This chapter describes the phases and constituents present in iron-carbon steels in near-equilibrium conditions. It explains how to use phase diagrams to predict and manage the development of ferrite, austenite, cementite, and pearlite through controlled cooling. It discusses the transformations, grain structure, and properties associated with each phase and identifies the primary stabilizing elements. It includes several micrographs revealing various microstructural features and describes the processing route by which they were achieved. It explains how to estimate the volume fraction of iron-carbon phases in equilibrium and how to determine the amount of each phase that must be present to reach a desired composition. The chapter also discusses the phases associated with hypo- and hyper-eutectoid steels and presents more than a dozen micrographs, identifying important structural features along with cooling conditions and sample preparation procedures.

Steel is an important material because of its tremendous flexibility in metal working and heat treating to produce a variety of mechanical, physical, and chemical properties. The purpose of this chapter is to present the metallurgical principles of heat treatment of steel in a generalized manner. The chapter provides a discussion on the constitution of commercially pure iron, subsequently leading to discussion on the iron-carbon alloy system. The chapter also describes the effect of carbon on the constitution of iron and of the solubility of carbon in iron. It provides information on transformations and on the classification of steels by carbon content. The chapter ends with a discussion on the effect of time on transformation and on the use of time-temperature-transformation diagrams.

This chapter discusses the characteristics of eutectoid transformations, a type of solid-state transformation associated with invariant reactions, focusing on the iron-carbon system of steel. It describes the compositions, characteristics, and properties of ferrite, eutectoid, hypoeutectoid, and hypereutectoid structures and how they are affected by the addition of various alloying elements. The chapter also discusses the formation of peritectoid structures in the uranium-silicon alloy system.

This chapter focuses on the evolution of steel production from 1870 to 1900. It begins with a review of the life of the inventor of the air-boiling process, William Kelly. This is followed by a discussion on how Bessemer's air-blowing process entered the steel production industry and the development of the Kelly-Bessemer process by Alexander Holley. The chapter then discusses how Andrew Carnegie lowered the cost to produce steel, how he entered the iron and steelmaking industry, and how Captain Billy Jones joined Carnegie to expand Carnegie steel. The chapter further provides information on the great strike of 1892 at Homestead and the rapid growth in steel markets. It ends with a discussion about the factors that led Carnegie to sell his steel empire.

The necessity of developing the lightest-weight structures with sufficient strength was the driving factor for the development of filament-wound composite pressure vessels. This chapter presents a brief history of the development of rocket motor cases (RMCs), followed by a comparison of the advantages of composites over metals for RMCs. A discussion on a typical design, analysis, and manufacturing operation follows. The chapter introduces the basic design approach and shows some sizing techniques along with example calculations. It discusses the processes involved in the testing of the composite pressure vessel.

This chapter examines the isothermal phase transformations of the iron-carbide system. The discussion includes the formation of ferritic, eutectoid, hypoeutectoid, hypereutectoid, bainitic, and martensitic microstructures as well as their properties, composition, and metallurgy. The use of time-temperature-transformation (TTT) diagrams in understanding the phase transformations and the changes in the isothermal transformation curves due to the addition of carbon and other alloying elements are also discussed.

This chapter is a detailed account of the history of development of titanium and its modern applications in the aerospace market. It begins by discussing the attempts made to produce titanium metal. This is followed by a discussion on the invention of a process for making titanium by William Kroll. Various studies on the properties on titanium and research programs related to the production of titanium sponge and titanium metal products are then described. The chapter concludes with a discussion of titanium use in jet engines.

This chapter reviews the basic chemistry of beryllium metals and compounds, including beryllium hydroxide, beryllium carbonates, beryllium fluoride, and beryllium chloride. It discusses the uses as well as application challenges of various forms of beryllium and includes information on their chemical properties and reactions.

This appendix is a timeline of events related to the discovery, development, and commercialization of stainless steels.

This chapter discusses the development of the nomenclature used to describe the constitution and structure of metals and alloys, particularly the phases observed in the microstructure of steel. It also points out some of the problems with current nomenclature and provides recommendations on how to avoid them.

This chapter discusses the important role of metallography and the metallographer in predicting and understanding the properties of metals and alloys. Examples are presented of a metallographer working as part of a team in a research laboratory of a large steel company and a metallographer working alone at a small iron foundry. The three basic areas in all metallography laboratories are discussed: the specimen preparation area, the polishing/etching area, and the observation/micrography area. Important safety issues in a metallographic laboratory are also considered.

This chapter describes the metallurgy, composition, and properties of steels and other alloys. It provides information on the atomic structure of metals, the nature of alloy phases, and the mechanisms involved in phase transformations, including time-temperature effects and the role of diffusion, nucleation, and growth. It also discusses alloying, heat treating, and defect formation and briefly covers condenser tube materials.

This chapter discusses the types, methods, and advantages of heat treating procedures, including annealing, normalizing, tempering, and case hardening. It describes the iron-carbon system, the formation of equilibrium and metastable phases, and the effect of alloy elements on hardenability and tempering response. It discusses the significance of critical temperatures, the use of transformation diagrams, and types of annealing treatments. It also provides information on heat treating furnaces, the effect of heating rate on transformation temperatures, quench and temper procedures, and the use of cold treating.

The scanning acoustic microscope (SAM) is an important tool for development of improved molded and flip chip packages. The SAM used for integrated circuit inspection is a hybrid instrument with characteristics of both the Stanford SAM and the C-scan recorder. This chapter presents the historical development of SAM for integrated circuit package inspection, SAM theory, and analysis considerations. Case studies are presented to illustrate the practical applications of SAM. Other non-destructive imaging tools are briefly discussed, as well as SAM challenges and methods including spectral signature analysis and GHz-SAM.