Metallurgy of Steel Selection in Components Design: Micro-Constituents and Alloying

Abstract

The design engineer is daily confronted with the need for materials to meet design requirements of strength, stiffness, toughness, wear-resistance, corrosion-resistance, high-temperature operation and so on. Steel is the most versatile material and can be made into various forms, types or grades and possesses diverse mechanical properties that made it suitable for different uses. Through the study of the metallurgy of steel, steels are standardized into groups according to their composition, characteristics and uses derived from the types, sizes and dispersion of micro-constituents. The knowledge of the various standards and their equivalence relationships are the tools for choice of steel for design and for the development of new grades of steel.