THE JAPANESE SWORD

Abstract

Traditional methods of preparing a kind of steel called tamahagane used for the Japanese sword by tatara system and procedure of making the sword are briefly introduced with the discussions from the viewpoint of metallurgy and thermo-mechanical processing. Such traditional methods are also revealed to be consistent with the modern science and technology. The quenching process applied to the final stage of the procedure is focussed to explain how the pattern of blade, the deformation and residual stresses are induced by the computer simulation based on the theory of metallo-thermo-mechanics relevant to the coupled fields among temperature, microstructural change and stress/strain.