PREFACE

This is Volume Three of the Eighth Edition of the Welding Handbook. The title of this third volume, Materials and Applications-Part 1, suggests correctly that the Eighth Edition will have a fourth volume, Materials and Applications-Part 2. Volume Three begins the process of updating and substantially expanding the material previously presented in Volume Four of the Seventh Edition and Volume 5 of the Sixth Edition.

Originally, the Welding Handbook Committee had planned to publish the Materials and Applications title as a single publication. However, as the Committee began to compile the text, it became apparent that the material was too voluminous to be contained in a single text. Therefore, it was necessary to separate Materials and Applications into two volumes. Unfortunately, this decision was made after the first two volumes of the Eighth Edition had been published, and so the front matter in Volumes One and Two indicate Volume Three to be the Materials and Applications material in its entirety.

Volume Three, Materials and Applications-Part 1, covers many nonferrous metals, plastics, composites, ceramics, and new specialized topics: maintenance and repair welding and underwater welding and cutting. Volume Four, Materials and Applications-Part 2, will contain information mostly on ferrous materials, but it also will cover titanium, clad and dissimilar metals, tube-totubesheet welding, and the reactive, refractory, and precious metals and alloys. Volume Four, Materials and Applications-Part 2, is scheduled to be published two years following the publication of Volume Three, Materials and Applications-Part 1.