Iron and steels

Abstract

Whereas the fundamental properties of all metallic elements are covered systematically and comprehensively in Chap. 4, this chapter treats iron as both a base and an alloying element of metallic materials. The properties of metallic materials depend sensitively not only on their chemical composition and on the electronic and crystal structure of the phases formed, but also to a large degree on their microstructure, including the kind and distribution of lattice defects. The phase composition and microstructure of iron is strongly dependent, in turn, on the thermal and mechanical treatments, which are applied under well-controlled conditions to achieve the desired properties. According to the complexity of the interrelations between the fundamental (intrinsic) and microstructure-dependent (extrinsic) properties of iron, this chapter provides a substantial amount of explanatory text.