Ferrous materials show a very large range of mechanical and physical properties that can be conferred and tailored by alloying, fabrication and processing and are controlled by their structure at the micro- and macro-levels. After a general introduction to the metallurgy of ferrous alloys and a discussion of the relationship between their structure and properties, the main families of wrought steel products will be presented, including their fabrication, heat treatments, industrial applications and service characteristics. Some emphasis will be given to describing properties and applications of mould steels, heat-treatable steels and tool steels. The second part of the course will be devoted to stainless steels. Application of stainless steels, featuring properties unavailable with other ferrous alloys, is continuously expanding. These alloys are today dominant materials not only for cooking utensils, cutlery, chemical and oil industry, food and beverage processing plants, health, medical engineering and sanitary applications, but also for high demanding constructions including vacuum and cryogenic systems, pressure vessels, components of magnets and structural applications. Examples of innovative grades, processing and applications of stainless steels will be discussed, including a new non-magnetic steel developed for CERN LHC magnet beam screen, and near net shaping techniques based on Powder Metallurgy (PM) and Hot Isostatic Pressing (HIP) applied for the fabrication of the end covers of the 1232 superconducting dipole magnets of LHC operating at 1.9 K. Finally, the properties and measurements of materials for magnetic applications will be discussed. After a review of the magnetic properties of materials and the different types of magnetic behaviour, different families of soft magnetic materials will be described, with a particular emphasis on irons and iron-based alloys. Innovative materials such as iron powder core materials, amorphous and nanocrystalline alloys will also be treated.
