TABLE OF CONTENTS 
The engineer, in selecting a material for a developing design, needs data for its properties. Engineers are often conservative in their choice, reluctant to consider material with which they are unfamiliar. One reason is this: that data for the old, well-tried materials are reliable, familiar, easily-found; data for newer, more exciting, materials may not exist or, if they do, may not inspire confidence. Yet innovation is often made possible by new materials. So it is important to know where to find material data and how far it can be trusted. This chapter gives information about data sources.
As a design progresses from concept to detail, the data needs evolve in two ways (Figure 15.1). At the start the need is for low-precision data for all materials and processes, structured to facilitate screening. At the end the need is for accurate data for one or a few of them, but with the richness of detail that assists with the difficult aspects of the selection: corrosion, wear, cost estimation, and the like. The data sources that help with the first are inappropriate for the second. The chapter surveys data sources from the perspective of the designer seeking information at each stage of the design process. Long-established materials are well documented; less-common materials may be less so, posing problems of checking and, sometimes, of estimation. The chapter proper ends with a discussion of how this can be done.
