A. V. K. Suryanarayana was Head of the Department of Metallurgy, V.I.S.S.J. Polytechnic, Bhadravathi. He taught the subject for over a decade. During the preparation of this book, he took the advice of many pioneers in the field of metallurgy and even got appreciation of Dr. Albert G. Guy, the famous metallurgist in USA, for the presentation of this book. He has authored another book namely, Testing of Metallic Materials is published by BS Publications, Hyderabad.