Metal Annealing
in this episode, Michael Pfeifer discusses the recrystallization anneal process and confusion regarding the use of the term anneal.
MC 027 Metal Annealing
Metal Conversations
Metal Conversations is a podcast by Michael Pfeifer from Industrial Metallurgists, LLC. He talks about metallurgy and metals engineering as they apply to product design and manufacturing. This covers many different areas since considerations about the metals used in products includes alloy selection, supplier selection, manufacturing process development, and fixing quality problems, just to name a few.
MC 026 Phase Diagrams
Phase Diagrams
Phase diagrams are graphical representations of the phases present in a particular alloy being held at a particular temperature. Phase diagrams are used to predict the phase changes that occur in alloys during heating and cooling. This can be during heat treating, casting solidification, joining processes that involve molten metal, and elevated temperature use conditions. This is important because the properties of a metal component depend on the phases present in the metal.
In this episode Michael discusses phase diagrams and their use.
To learn more about phase diagrams check out this video and article.
MC 025 Engineering Mistakes, Causes, and Prevention
Engineering Mistakes, Causes, and Prevention
Engineering and producing a product or structure involves many decisions and actions, and occasionally mistakes are made. Sometimes they are easy to fix and not costly. Other times the mistakes take a great deal of effort and money to fix. Regardless, the general categories of mistakes can be put into two categories – mistakes due to process or procedure errors and mistakes due to ignorance.
In this episode Michael discusses these types of mistakes, their causes, and ways to prevent them from occurring.
To learn more about check out this video and article.
MC 024 Supplier Selection
Supplier Selection
Supplier selection involves many considerations from several different perspectives, such as design engineering, quality engineering, sourcing, finance, and shipping and logistics.
In this episode, Michael discusses supplier selection considerations based on the materials engineering perspective, with a focus on metal stock and metal components.
To learn more about supplier selection from the materials engineering perspective, check out this video and article.
MC 023 Component Design Process
Component Design Process
Michael discusses a high level view of the component design process from the metals engineering perspective.
To learn more about the component design process, check out this video and these articles on material selection, materials selection and design requirements, and designing optimized components.
MC 022 Product Launch Formula
Product Launch Formula
In this episode, Michael discusses different aspects of product development, product launch, and post-launch where materials engineering will improve product success.
Developing and launching a product can be stressful – there are many decisions, problems to overcome, and risks to mitigate. While we’d like the process to go smoothly and be able to calmly meet deadlines, this usually is not the case – things we didn’t consider pop up or things that shouldn’t have been a problem become a problem.
Many of the decisions, problems, and risks are associated with the materials used in a product. After all, a product is ultimately an assembly of materials that have been shaped, manipulated, and modified. So, making the effort to engineer the materials will have an impact on product cost, performance, and reliability,
and on manufacturing throughput and quality.
Check this video and article to learn more about successful product development, launch, and improvement.
MC 021 Residual Stress in Metals
Residual Stress in Metals
In this episode, I discuss residual stress in metals
 See this blog post on residual stress to learn more about residual stress
See this blog post on the five concepts to learn more.
MC 020 Five Key Metallurgy Concepts
Five Key Metallurgy Concepts
In this episode I discuss five key metallurgy concepts that apply to all metals and are necessary to understand to be able to apply metallurgy to
- Produce stock metal
- Design and fabricate low-cost, reliable components.
- Figure out the root cause of component failures and production quality problems.
See this blog post on the five concepts to learn more.
MC 019 Two Fundamental Metallurgy Principles
Two Fundamental Metallurgy Principles
In this episode I discuss the two fundamental principles that are the foundation of metallurgy and metals engineering. See this blog post on two fundamental metallurgy principles to learn more.
MC 018 Engineering to Prevent Hydrogen Embrittlement
Engineering to Prevent Hydrogen Embrittlement
In this episode I discuss the hydrogen embrittlement mechanism and the engineering steps needed to prevent hydrogen embrittlement of steel fasteners.
See our blog post on hydrogen embrittlement to learn more.
MC 017 Life (and Engineering) Lessons from Boxing
Life (and Engineering) Lessons from Boxing
In this episode I discuss a lesson I learned from boxing – being purposeful – and how it applies to engineering (and probably other disciplines) and other aspects of life.
MC 016 Using Failure Analysis to Improve Equipment Reliability
Using Failure Analysis to Improve Equipment Reliability
In this episode I discuss another failure analysis project I worked on – an equipment reliability problem. This example demonstrates how failure analysis is applied to improve reliability.
I also discuss my motivation for working on failure analyses.
This episode is a complement to articles and podcasts available on the Industrial Metallurgists website.
MC 015 Definition of Successful Product
Definition of Successful Product
From an engineering perspective, what is a successful product? In this episode I discuss what I think it is and the influence of metals engineering on product success.
I also discuss three new resources for learning about successful component design, designing for reliability, and various metallurgy and metals engineering topics that apply to product design and manufacturing.
This episode is a complement to articles and podcasts available on the Industrial Metallurgists website.
MC 014 Failure Analysis Case Studies
Failure Analysis Case Studies
In this episode I discuss two failure analysis projects I worked on.
This episode is a complement to articles and podcasts available on the Industrial Metallurgists website.
MC 013 Product Reliability and Materials Degradation
Product Reliability and Materials Degradation
In this episode I discuss product reliability. Reliability refers to the ability of a product to perform as needed for a period of time.
This episode is a complement to an article (Designing for Reliability) and short video presentation (Product Reliability and Materials Engineering) available on the Industrial Metallurgists website.
