Tool Steels: Properties and Performance

This handy book provides a single, up-to-date source of information for increasing the life of tool steels through optimized design and manufacturing. Supplying a solid understanding of the metallurgy involved, the text explains how material compositions, manufacturing processes, heat treatments, surface hardening techniques, and coatings affect tool steel properties, grades, and performance. It also explores real-life case studies and failure analyses, offering examples of die-life parameters and hints for modifying tool steels and heat treatments during cutting or forming processes. While the book offers deep coverage of properties, microstructure, and manufacturing, its focus is on describing the performance of each application of this special class of ferrous materials.

• Provides a single, up-to-date source of information for increasing the life of tool steels through optimized design and manufacturing.
• Explains how material compositions, manufacturing processes, heat treatments, surface hardening techniques, and coatings affect tool steel properties, grades, and performance.
• Supplies a solid understanding of the metallurgy involved in tool steel manufacturing, machining, hot and cold working, and molding.
• Offers examples of die-life parameters and hints for modifying tool steels and heat treatments during cutting or forming processes.
• Includes real-life case studies and failure analyses from the Villares Metals plant in Brazil.

Dr. Rafael Agnelli Mesquita has worked for more than 15 years in the physical metallurgy of alloyed steels, mainly on the application of steels in different industrial field and in the development of new compositions. His career has been a blend of academia and industrial experiences: 12 years in the R&D and production technology of high alloy steels in Villares Metals (voestalpine Edelstahl branch in Brazil), 4 years as a professor in Brazilian universities (University of São Paulo and University Nove de Julho) and as visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2011. To date, Dr. Mesquita has approximately 150 published papers and 10 product patents, most on the understanding, characterization and development of tool steels. He currently works in the USA under his own consulting firm, RAF Consult, and is mainly focused on niobium-bearing steels as a consultant of CBMM Technology.