ABSTRACT
Material selection is an important step in the process of designing a component or part. Material selection plays an important role in the context of product design, safe, and reliable functioning of a part or component at minimum cost while meeting the product performance goals. This chapter deals with normal methods of selection of materials and their limitations. The importance of systemising the selection process is explained. In this chapter the need for data on availability, data on requirements and data on nonfunctional aspects for systematic selection of materials is discussed with case studies.
