Physical metallurgy is one of the two main branches of the scientific approach to metallurgy, which considers in a systematic way the physical properties of metals and alloys. It is basically the fundamentals and applications of the theory of phase transformations in metal and alloys.[1] While chemical metallurgy involves the domain of reduction/oxidation of metals, physical metallurgy deals mainly with mechanical and magnetic/electric/thermal properties of metals – as described by solid-state physics.
1868 – Dmitry Chernov founds physical metallurgy. He identifies the critical points of steel.
1875 – William Chandler Roberts-Austen provides the diagram Ag-Cu.
1878 – Adolf Martens describes relations between microstructure and physical properties, specially the role of kinks, defects and crystallization.
1887 – Henry Clifton Sorby determines the pearlite structure.
1887 – Floris Osmond gives the name and symbols associated to the phases of steel.
1896 – First attempt at the Fe-C diagram of steel by Albert Sauveur.
1897 – Roberts-Austen provides the complete Fe-C diagram. He also described the high temperature phase of steel (austenite).
1900 – Hendrik Willem Bakhuis Roozeboom publishes the Fe Fe3C diagram taking into accounts Gibbs phase rule.
1906 – Alfred Wilm discovers age hardening by accident.
1919 –Gustav Heinrich Tammann predicts the order-disorder transition of alloys at low temperature
1922 – Arne Westgren (de) and Robert P. Fragman showed that the γ phase of steel is face-centered cubic (fcc), while the α, β and δ phases are body centered cubic.