ABSTRACT
The mechanical properties of molybdenum depend, to a large extent, on the amount of cold work. During the postwar period, many new technological applications were developed for molybdenum and its alloys. The progress particularly in the peaceful uses of molybdenum had been phenomenal, and with all this, its military uses, although not of strategic importance, decreased. The early history of the metal was shaped by two scientists, Carl Wilhelm Scheele and Peter Jacob Hjelm. It was Scheele who in the year 1778 demonstrated that molybdenite, the principal molybdenum mineral, was a discrete mineral sulfide. An illustrative account of the history of molybdenum will now be followed by a description of the physical, chemical, and mechanical properties of molybdenum, its applications, and its various important alloys and compounds. In respect to physical properties, these steels differ from ferritic steels in some respects. A significant difference lies in the fact that the former are nonmagnetic unlike the latter.
