Читать книгу Designing Weldments - Группа авторов - Страница 20

Mechanical properties of metals make them useful for engineering applications. These properties make them strong, playable, to form shape and still retain their strength. Metals possess a combination of properties like toughness, strength and ductility that vary from metal to metal this variation allows the choice of specific metal for specific needs of the structure. These properties of some metals like steel, and aluminum can be altered and improved to make them more suitable for specific objectives.

Through a combination of both alloy selection and heat treatment gives design engineers a selection of mechanical properties in metals to choose from. During the fabrication process too, the applied heat, joining methods like welding and brazing choice of filler metal for welding all affect metal’s mechanical properties. Some of these properties are counter to each other; that is, if you increase one property the other may be lowered and vice versa. This leads to some compromises in selection process. This brings in the importance of fully knowing the properties of metals. To know the specific properties of metal in given condition and during its formation during fabrication it is essential to test and know exact properties of the material that is being used for design purpose.

In the following paragraphs a brief introduction to some of the mechanical properties is discussed.