TABLE OF CONTENTS Many designers and engineers wonder on a daily basis if they are using the correct material for a given application or if a better choice could be made, because in the field of material selection the choices are vast and are continuously expanding. New materials are developed whenever the old composition does not meet the industry requirements.
Over the years the industry assembled an impressive inventory of various steels, alloys, and other materials, causing perhaps many to fear that they may not see the forest for the trees. Therefore, the decision to use a particular material for the given application is often based on hours and hours of laborious research and evaluation. And yet an idea may often lurk somewhere, perhaps in our subconscious, that a better, cheaper, more advantageous, and more appropriate selection could have been made.
The already complex problem of material selection is further impaired by the fact that even though so many materials are now available many designers may not be acquainted with them in detail. There is just too much material to be studied, with too many facts to be assessed. One has to have a mind of a computer to be able to store data in bulk and yet exercise some sort of selective control and evaluating properties, which is quite an unlikely combination. Nobody expects the computer to think and nobody should expect a person to store data the way a computer does.
To select a proper...
