TABLE OF CONTENTS Mechanical components can be produced by the casting process wherein the liquid metal is directly formed into a product in the form of a casting. However, most of the mechanical components are produced by the wrought process, wherein the metal is either cold- or hot- worked. Knowing whether a specific material has the required shaping and processing characteristics is very important and one should be able to specify the optimum shaping and processing techniques. Invariably, thermal treatments are involved in the making of machine components and one should be able to specify the precise thermal treatments as well. These are covered in this chapter.
Mechanical processing of materials to bring them to required shape is of paramount importance in mechanical engineering practice. Although design engineers resort to preforms and shapes of selected materials that are already available from the industry, they should be familiar with the methods of manufacture used, the resultant microstructure and defect structure in the material forms, and, especially, any resultant stresses present as residual stresses in the material. Residual stresses of the tensile kind are generally detrimental, adversely affecting the fracture toughness; these need to be relieved or appropriately handled during...
