ABSTRACT
This chapter presents detailed information and examples to enable the reader to select or specify a material on the basis of its strength after heat treating. Cost information is given so that one can determine the cost-effectiveness of a material and select the lowest cost material on the basis of mechanical strength. In order to select the optimal steel on the basis of strength, it is necessary to have the cost information for the various steels as well as the hardenability data. At the present time there are very few quantitative relationships between the mechanical properties and the microstructures of all the non-ferrous materials. As a consequence, it is still often necessary to determine the properties of these materials from unrelated tabular data. The limits of the hardenability band computed in this manner are outside the experimentally determined values since in practice not all of the alloying elements nor the grain size are at their maximum or minimum values.
