FAILURE MECHANISMS in tool and die materials that are very important to nearly all manufacturing processes are discussed in this article. A wide variety of tool steel compositions are used. Properties and selection of tool steels are described in the Section “Tool Materials” in Volume 3 of the 9th Edition of Metals Handbook; microstructures and metallographic techniques for tool steels are detailed in the article “Tool Steels” in Volume 9 of the 9th Edition of Metals Handbook. This article is primarily devoted to failures of tool steels used in cold-working and hot-working applications.
The articles and presentations that can be down-loaded from this web site are based upon work done by GFV while employed at Bethlehem Steel (1967-1983), Carpenter Technology (1983-1996), Buehler Ltd. (1996-2009) and Struers (2009-Present) and from the authors consulting work for companies such as, Latrobe Steel, Scot Forge, etc., and from his litigation work. GFV's bylined articles appearing in various issues of the ASM Handbook series have been listed here courtesy of ASM International, Materials Park, Ohio.