Book Description

In contemporary materials technology, some areas are considered particularly exciting: the "new materials" like ceramics and amorphous metals, revolutionary procedures to fabricate or to analyze materials-in short: everything which is now commonly labelled "high tech". It should be kept in mind, however, that also in the foreseeable future basic materials such as steel, light alloys or concrete will constitute the solid backbone of engineering and building. Science and technology of these traditional materials is characterized by a dynamic evolution aiming at higher quality and reliability at lower production costs, and at continuous adaptation to advanced production technologies. Progress in this technical evolution is closely linked to the application of scientific fundamentals. This book by T. Ototani presents an excellent example for this important area of development. The process metallurgy of steel, being a complex sequence of reactions like reduction, decarburization, deoxidation, desulphurization, alloying, etc. , is to be regarded as a system of operations designed to produce a high quality steel with well defined properties in very large amounts with a maximum of technical and economic efficiency. The text, written by a well known Japanese expert, presents insight into the chemistry of the application of calcium for the production of clean steel, into the thermodynamic equilibria involved, the kinetics of dissolution and reaction, the formation, morphology and separation of inclusions, and the technological properties of the steels obtained by this method.