Copper is often used in the unalloyed form because pure copper is more conductive than copper alloys. Alloying elements are added to optimize strength, ductility, and thermal stability, with little negative effect on other properties such as conductivity, fabricability, and corrosion resistance. This chapter covers the classification, composition, properties, and applications of copper alloys, including brasses, bronzes, copper-nickel, beryllium-copper, and casting alloys. It also examines wrought copper alloys and pure coppers. The chapter begins with an overview of the copper production process and concludes with a discussion on corrosion resistance.

This chapter presents an overview of heat treating of nonferrous alloys. First, a brief discussion on the effects of cold work and annealing on nonferrous alloys is presented. This is followed by a discussion on the mechanisms involved in the more commonly used heat treating procedures for hardening or strengthening, namely solution treating and aging. Examples are presented for heat treating of two commercially important nonferrous alloys, one from the aluminum-copper system and one from the copper-beryllium system.

This chapter contains tables listing room-temperature tensile yield strength comparisons of metals and plastics and room-temperature tensile modulus of elasticity comparisons of various materials.

This chapter covers the friction and wear behaviors of copper alloys. It describes the compositions and forms of copper available and their suitability for applications involving friction, different types of erosion, and adhesive and abrasive wear.

This chapter describes a process for recovering beryllium from industrial waste associated with beryllium-copper production. It presents several detailed flowsheets along with typical operating parameters such as flow rates, chemical concentrations, particle sizes, and compositional ranges.

This article discusses the composition, properties, and behaviors of copper and its alloys. It begins with an overview of the characteristics, applications, and commercial grades of wrought and cast copper. It then discusses the role of alloying, explaining how zinc, tin, aluminum, silicon, and nickel affect the physical and mechanical properties of coppers and high-copper alloys as well as brasses, bronzes, copper-nickels, and nickel silvers. It also explains how alloying affects electrical conductivity, corrosion resistance, stress-corrosion cracking, and processing characteristics.

This appendix is a collection of tables listing coefficients of linear thermal expansion for carbon and low-alloy steels, presenting a summary of thermal expansion, thermal conductivity, and heat capacity; and listing thermal conductivities and specific heats of carbon and low-alloy steels.

The discovery and use of materials have shaped civilization since ancient times. This chapter traces the history of the use of metals from hammered copper estimated to be 11,000 years old to the development of electrolytically refined aluminum in 1884. The discussion covers the advent of the Bronze Age, extraction of metals from their respective ores, and the discovery of modern metals such as chromium, vanadium, platinum, and titanium.

This article discusses the composition, structures, properties, and behaviors of aluminum alloys and explains how they correspond to specific alloying elements. It begins with an overview of the general characteristics of wrought and cast aluminum alloys, the four-digit classification system by which they are defined, and the applications for which they are suited. It then explains how primary alloying elements, second-phase constituents, and impurities affect yield strength, phase formation, and grain size and how they induce structural changes that help refine certain alloys. The article also explains how primary alloying elements affect corrosion and wear behaviors and how they influence fabrication processes such as forming, forging, welding, brazing, and soldering.

This chapter discusses the composition, properties, and uses of the most common beryllium alloys and composites. It provides information on beryllium-aluminum, beryllium-copper, and beryllium-titanium as well as beryllium-antimony and beryllium-iron systems.

Nonferrous alloys are heat treated for a variety of reasons. Heat treating can reduce internal stresses, redistribute alloying elements, promote grain formation and growth, produce new phases, and alter surface chemistry. This chapter describes heat treatment processes and how nonferrous alloys respond to them. It provides information on aluminum, cobalt, copper, magnesium, nickel, and titanium alloys and their composition, microstructure, properties, and processing characteristics.

This chapter discusses the compositions, properties, and applications of nonferrous metals, including zirconium, hafnium, beryllium, lead, tin, gold, silver, and platinum group metals. It also addresses fusible alloys and provides melting temperatures for several compositions.

This chapter provides an overview of the physical metallurgy of beryllium, discussing phases and phase transformations, physical and mechanical properties, heat treatment, and alloying. It explains how the atomic structure of beryllium, particularly its sp hybrid state, contributes to the anisotropy of elastic constants and slip properties, resulting in a specific stiffness, or modulus-to-density ratio, six times higher than that of any other structural material.

Nonferrous metals are of commercial interest both as engineering materials and as alloying agents. This chapter addresses both roles, discussing the properties, processing characteristics, and applications of several categories of nonferrous metals, including light metals, corrosion-resistance alloys, superalloys, refractory metals, low-melting-point metals, reactive metals, precious metals, rare earth metals, and metalloids or semimetals. It also provides a brief summary on special-purpose materials, including uranium, vanadium, magnetic alloys, and thermocouple materials.

Engineers have many materials to choose from when dealing with weight-related design constraints. The list includes aluminum, beryllium, magnesium, and titanium alloys as well as engineering plastics, structural ceramics, and polymer-, metal-, and ceramic-matrix composites. This chapter provides a brief overview of these lightweight materials, discussing their primary advantages along with their properties, behaviors, and limitations.

The term heat treatable alloys is used in reference to alloys that can be hardened by heat treatment, and this chapter briefly describes the major types of heat treatable nonferrous alloys. The discussion provides a general description of annealing cold-worked metals and describes some of the common nonferrous alloys that can be hardened through heat treatment. The nonferrous alloys covered include aluminum alloys, cobalt alloys, copper alloys, magnesium alloys, nickel alloys, and titanium alloys.

Beryllium has been successfully joined by fusion welding, brazing, solid-state bonding, and soldering. This chapter describes these processes in detail along with their advantages and disadvantages. It also addresses application considerations such as surface preparation, joint design, and testing.

This chapter provides an overview of beryllium casting practices and the challenges involved. It discusses the stages of solidification, the effect of cooling rate, the difficulty of heat removal, and the potential for hot cracking. It describes common melting techniques, including vacuum induction melting, vacuum arc melting, and electron beam melting, and some of the ways they have been used to cast beryllium alloys. The chapter also includes information on metal purification and grain refinement procedures.

Aluminum casting alloy compositions parallel those of wrought alloys in many respects. However, because work hardening plays no significant role in the development of casting properties, the use and purposes of some alloying elements differ in casting alloys versus wrought alloys. This chapter provides information on specifications and widely used designation systems and alloy nomenclature for aluminum casting alloys. It describes the composition of seven basic families of aluminum casting alloys: aluminum-copper, aluminum-silicon-copper, aluminum-silicon, aluminum-silicon-magnesium, aluminum-magnesium, aluminum-zinc-magnesium, and aluminum-tin. The chapter discusses the effects of alloying elements on the properties of cast aluminum. It provides information on various alloys that are grouped with respect to their applications or major performance characteristics.