High-Performance Ferrous Alloys

The current state of understanding of emerging iron alloys and high-alloy ferrous systems, in comparison with some conventional steels, is compiled in this single volume to further their development. While most of the conventional steels are produced routinely today, many advanced high strength steels and iron-based alloys are still in the laboratory stage. The iron-based emerging alloys can yield high levels of mechanical and physical properties due to their new alloy concepts and novel microstructures leading to multiple benefits of their use in terms of sustainability and environmental impact. 

This book contains introductory chapters that present the requisite background knowledge on thermodynamics, phase diagrams, and processing routes used for the ferrous alloys to enable the readers a smooth understanding of the main chapters. Then, an overview of the conventional microalloyed steels and advanced high strength steels is given to present the benchmark of the existing steels and ferrous alloys manifesting their current state-of-the-art in terms of physical metallurgy and engineering applications. Subsequent chapters detail novel, emerging ferrous alloys and high-alloy ferrous systems. 

• Summarizes the state-of-the-art of emerging iron-based alloys and the new processing and physical metallurgy-related developments of high-alloy iron systems;
• Explores new iron-based systems driven by the need for new properties, enhanced performance, sustainable processes and educed environmental impact;
• Compiles cutting-edge research on the progress of materials science of iron-based systems, from physical metallurgy to engineering applications, and possible avenues for future research.

Radhakanta Rana, PhD, FIMMM has undergraduate and post graduate academic backgrounds in Metallurgical Engineering. After a research stint at the Central Glass and Ceramic Research Institute in Kolkata, following his Master of Engineering from the then Bengal Engineering College (D.U.), Shibpur, West Bengal, India, he earned his PhD in 2009 in the same discipline from Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (IIT Kharagpur), India with a 2 years DAAD Fellowship for doctoral research at RWTH Aachen University, Germany. Dr. Rana started his professional career in early 2008 in the Aluminium Metallurgy group of the then Corus R&D in The Netherlands following the conclusion of his doctoral research. Currently, he is a senior member of the metallurgy group, High Strength Strip Steels, at Tata Steel R&D division based in IJmuiden, The Netherlands. He is experienced in experimental research on the development of innovative hot- and cold-formable steels and aluminium alloys particularly for automotive applications, with a particular focus on the understanding of their chemistry-processing-structure-property paradigm. Dr. Rana has also pursued his postdoctoral research for 2 years (2013-2015) at the Advanced Steel Processing & Products Research Center (ASPPRC), Colorado School of Mines, Golden, CO. He has published some of his work on precipitation hardening steels, low density steels, high modulus steels, 3^rd generation advanced high strength steels, press-hardening steels and research techniques such as thermoelectric power and resistivity measurements in various reputed international journals and conference proceedings, and also filed a number of patents in the areas of new steel products, their processing and properties. Dr. Rana has also edited special themed issues on low density steels, high modulus steels and medium manganese steels in JOM, Canadian Metallurgical Quarterly and Materials Science and Technology, respectively. Previously, he has published another book on Automotive Steels, as the lead editor from Elsevier with Woodhead imprint. Dr. Rana serves as an Editor of Materials Science and Technology (an IOM3 journal), an Editorial Board Member of Scientific Reports (a Nature journal) and a Key Reader of Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A (a TMS journal). He is  member of two professional organizations - the Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) and the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3). In personal front, he is married and the couple has a 9 years old son.