Second Edition.
2001. 454 р.
Computational metallurgy has grown rapidly over the last twenty years and the subject has been embraced by industry with remarkable enthusiasm, resulting in close collaborations and long term partnerships between industry and academic research laboratories. No longer are alloys designed from experience alone but calculations are used to reduce the task and to introduce creativity. There are now numerous examples of profitable commercial products resulting from the application of this type of research. The fact that bainitic steels have featured prominently in this kind of metallurgy is a testimony to the depth of understanding that has been achieved. The highest ever combinations of strength and toughness (1600 MPa, 130 MPa mr) have been obtained in bainitic steels invented using theory alone. Optically visible bainite has been obtained under conditions where the diffusion distance of an iron atom is just 10-1, m. Automobiles have become safer because of the incorporation of bainite-containing strong steels to protect against sideways collisions. Gigantic magnetic fields have been used to stimulate bainite. New tungsten-containing creep-resistant bainitic steels, which can be used without post-weld heat treatment have now been in service for more than four years. Experimental techniques invented to characterise the nucleation of bainite on ceramic particles have been emulated in other fields of metallurgy. Bainite is thriving as a material. Most of the new products based on bainite are manufactured by large steel industries. There are in addition, university spin-offs. In one case, a large company has been created to manufacture and market only bainitic steels; the company concerned is possibly unique in having the word 'bainite' in its title. In another case a fledgling 'dot-com' has been created to market the software useful in modelling the microstructure and properties of bainitic and other steels. A short monograph on bainite is now available in seven different languages on the world wide web.
