Publisher's Synopsis
This monograph introduces a novel concept of Phase Evolution Diagrams (PED) for determining the residual life of industrial components. The method established here has been received well by the international research community and could form the basis for the development of a new and extremely useful set of reference maps for use by metallurgists. PED is based on the simple thermodynamic considerations of precipitation processes and depict the time-dependence of the concentration of carbon (the fingerprint of thermal history of a component) as a function of time in ferritic steels. Beginning with a comprehensive survey of life extension procedures, the book introduces the concept of PED and shows its equivalence (for the evolution of metastable phases) to the well-known phase diagrams (for equilibrium phases). The evaluation of PED in ferritic steels is discussed extensively and the suitability of the same for non-ferrous components demonstrated. Practitioners of industrial metallurgy, residual life estimators and researchers in physical metallurgy will find the new concept of PED and the wealth of data available in the book valuable.
