Preface

Several essential elements characterize the turn of 2020 and 2021. Although the COVID-19 disease pandemic related to the transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has dominated all global activities, the directions of all undertakings are generally determined by the sustainable development goals set by the United Nations [1]. It is about providing people around the world with permanent access to products and consumer goods that directly affect the level and quality of life, the quality and potential of health protection, protection of the climate and natural goods, dissemination and improvement of the level of education, information exchange and other aspects. An important role in this respect is played by the scientific and engineering communities, serving to activate the development of societies. Undoubtedly, an important determinant of the present and future prosperity and high quality of life is the continuous development of engineering materials, closely related to the development of nanotechnology and surface engineering [2].

Industrial production is an important determinant of achieving the goals mentioned above, emphasizing ecological conditions, climate protection, and human health and life. The achieved stage of the scientific and technical revolution Industry 4.0 includes smart factories manufacturing smart products for which raw materials are supplied by smart suppliers and [3]. Physical production processes are monitored by production systems and make smart decisions. It is possible to do experiments with the use of "digital twins" in virtual reality by simulating the actual conditions of production, operation and maintenance of products. To achieve these goals, cyber-physical systems (CPS), Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing are used, with the use of large data sets while ensuring cybersecurity. Automation, robotization and digitization are the current essences of industrial activities. The concept of the developed information society Society 5.0 [4] corresponds to this.

However, it turned out that this model is one-sided and requires a correction and a significant extension. The simplified approach in the classic Industry 4.0 model gives the erroneous impression that progress is only about monitoring, controlling, coordinating and integrating information and communication technologies that make up cyber-physical systems, without the need to make real progress in the field of technological machines, manufacturing technologies and the engineering materials necessary for the manufacturing of any product. A far-reaching simplification is also reducing technological issues only to additive production, which is not competitive to many other manufacturing technologies absolutely necessary in overall manufacturing processes. Therefore, a holistic, extended and supplemented model of industry 4.0 was developed [5–9]. Only such a model of Industry 4.0 is adequate to the actual situation in the developing industry.

The general development of material culture and human civilization in general and the associated level and quality of life of societies largely depend on the development of technical materials, mainly engineering [10]. For thousands of years, materials have been implemented from which all products useful for life were made. The selection of materials for these goals was made by trial and error. Nowadays, the possibilities of using cyber-physical systems and large data sets and advanced

methods of artificial intelligence and machine learning are the essence of the systematically implemented Materials 4.0 approach [5–10]. It is accompanied by the use of materials on-demand with properties designed and required by designers when still two decades ago, it was only possible to choose from the materials offered by manufacturers. Achieving the material engineering paradigm according to the six expectations rule (6xE) [2, 11] is fully ensured because the operational functions of the product are ensured by designing the expected material, processed using the expected technology, to give the expected geometric features and shape of the product, enabling the expected structure to be obtained order to get a set of expected properties, ensuring the expected utility functions of the designed product.

Beginning in 10,000 years BC, humankind successively mastered the sourcing from nature and manufacturing of gold, copper, bronze, and finally iron and the manufacturing of products expected from these metals to meet the everyday needs of contemporary people [11]. It is also how the successive epochs of civilization development are defined. This progress was slow but systematic. In ancient Egypt, thousands of years BC, an engineering composite material, because artificially manufactured, was invented where reinforcement was made of straw fibres surrounded by a clay matrix, dried in the sun [1]. An important stage in this development was the invention of steel, which probably already took place around the 3rd century BC in ancient India. Still, it is believed that Sir Henry Bessemer, in 1856, was the first to devise a method that is considered the first step in the modern development of steelmaking and starting to steel mass production.

In 1825, Hans Christian Oersted discovered aluminium, and in 1856, thanks to the efforts of Henri Étienne Sainte-Claire Deville, industrial production of aluminium began, which in 1884 reached 3 tons in the world. Over time, numerous aluminium alloys have been developed, currently classified into eight series, differentiated by the alloying additives used, affecting significant but differentiated properties improvements.

Since the 1980s, AMC Aluminum Matrix Composites have become known, mainly due to their applications in the automotive industry. Due to the proliferation of carbon composites, AMC initially did not gain popularity. Breakthrough progress in this area dates back to the last 30 years. It was due to the attractive properties of AMC, including their density and functionality, as well as stiffness, strength, thermal and electrical properties.

The increase in aluminium production, its alloys and composites with aluminium matrix were compared with steel world production. Despite the 30 times lower production of aluminium [12] than steel, aluminium alloys and composites with the aluminium matrix are significant due to their lower density than that of steel. The challenges posed by the development in the Industry 4.0 phase, especially the expectations of the automotive and aviation industries, force constant progress in the development of new materials with the participation of aluminium.

The book "*Advanced Aluminium Composites and Alloys*" is my another book published in my personal academic career and third prepared with IntechOpen. The topic is very familiar to me because I am interested in it as it is one of the main areas of my scientific interest for a long-time. This book contains a collection of studies by authors from 12 different countries. Despite the asymmetrical number of chapters on each fundamental topic, it means advanced aluminium-based composite materials and alloys of this metal, roughly half in volume was devoted to each of these topics.

The book opens with my original study on advanced composites based on aluminium alloys and their production processes. Composite materials were manufactured by gas pressure infiltration with liquid aluminium alloys of suitably formed porous skeletons sintered from a mixture of Al2O3 powder and carbon fibres then are thermally degraded, using halloysite HNTs nanotubes by mechanical milling, consolidation in press and sintering and selective SLS laser sintering of titanium powders. Another group of manufacturing technologies is the mechanical synthesis of a mixture of aluminium alloy powder and HNTs halloysite nanotubes or MWCNTs multi-wall carbon nanotubes, respectively, and subsequent consolidation with plastic deformation. The third group concerns composite surface layers on substrates of aluminium alloys produced by laser feathering of WC/W2C or SiC carbides.

The next chapter in this part of the book, "The Theoretical Overview of the Selected Optimization and Prediction Models Useful in the Design of Aluminum Alloys and Aluminum Matrix Composites," was written by Halil Ibrahim Kurt et al. from Turkey. This chapter presents original research results from their own work and cited from the literature on the theory of artificial neural network (ANN), adaptive neural fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS) and Taguchi method and their applications in engineering design and manufacturing of aluminium alloys and AMC composites.

All other chapters deal with various aspects of aluminium alloys. The chapter titled "Effect of Zr Addition and Aging Treatment on the Tensile Properties of Al-Si-Cu-Mg Cast Alloys" is prepared by the international team of Jacobo Hernandez-Sandoval et al. from Canada, Mexico, Egypt and the USA. The chapter concerns the tensile strength of analysed materials containing aluminium at room and elevated temperatures. Zirconium forms phases with the participation of Ti, Si and Al, and their coagulation leads to a decrease in strength.

Rafał Hubicki and Maria Richert from Poland have prepared a chapter entitled "The High-Speed 6xxx Aluminum Alloys in Shape Extrusion Industry", where they analyzed alloys used in the automotive and construction industries.

The 9-person team of Uyime Donatus et al. from Brazil, South Africa, USA, UK and Canada wrote the next chapter entitled "Corrosion Resistance of Precipitation-Hardened Al Alloys: A Comparison between New Generation Al-Cu-Li and Conventional Alloys". The corrosion resistance of conventional alloys and new alloys of precipitation hardening alloys was compared. The AA6082-T6 alloy became the most resistant to corrosion, while the AA2024-T3 alloy showed the highest density of pitting spots.

The chapter "Machining of Al-Cu and Al-Zn Alloys for Aeronautical Components" by the team of Jorge Salguero et al. from Spain focused on the analysis of the relationship between drilling, milling and turning conditions, quality characteristics and the main wear mechanism during machining as factors influencing performance improvement and micro and macro geometric deviations.

In turn, in the chapter "Analysis of Surface Roughness of EN AW 2024 and EN AW 2030 Alloys after Micromachining" developed by Francisco Mata and Issam Hanafi from Spain and Morocco, the focus was on this technology suitable for the production of very small components in the industry. Very good surface properties can be achieved when turning aluminium alloys with a diameter of not less than 0.05 mm.

Zygmunt Mikno from Poland has prepared a chapter on "Resistance Welding of Aluminum Alloys with an Electromechanical Electrode Force System", which concerns the operation and depends on the new clamping solution in the welding machine and the optimization of the welding process of aluminium rods. The research consisted of the numerical analysis of two electrode pressure systems, i.e. conventional pneumatic and electromechanical, using the SORPAS software.

Last but not least is the chapter entitled "Applications of Aluminum Alloys in Rail Transportation" and was prepared in China by Xiaoguang Sun et al. This chapter focuses on the latest applications of aluminium alloys, including for the car body, gearbox and steering rack, and analyze key manufacturing techniques such as casting, forming and welding.

This book is a continuation of several books previously published in the last decade by InTech on various theoretical aspects, production, application and research of aluminium, its alloys and composites based on aluminium alloys, edited successively by Tibor Kvackaj (2011) [13], Zaki Ahmad (2011, 2012) [14, 15], Subbarayan Sivasankaran (2017) [16], Kavian Cooke (2020) [17].

Aluminium, its alloys and composites with aluminium participation undoubtedly belong to engineering materials of strategic importance for development in many areas. For about 150 years of practical use, they have found numerous applications, often competitive but in many cases unrivalled. Annual world production in 2015 has exceeded 62,500,000 metric tons. The main recipients are the automotive, aviation and transport industries, but also using these materials can be manufactured precision microelements.

At this point, I would like to thank the Authors for preparing individual chapters and the IntechOpen publisher for many months of cooperation in preparing this book for printing.

I am deeply convinced that this book is valuable and will be of interest to numerous PT Readers. Therefore, it remains for me to wish that my previsions meet with a friendly reception. I wish the PT Readers enjoy reading this book and hope it serves them in solving real engineering problems.

> **Leszek A. Dobrzański, Hon., Prof., Dr HC**, Director of Science Centre, Medical and Dental Engineering Centre for Research, Design and Production ASKLEPIOS, Gliwice, Poland

## **References**

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[3] Kagermann H, Wahlster W, Helbig J. Recommendations for Implementing the Strategic Initiative INDUSTRIE 4.0: Final Report of the Industrie 4.0 Working Group. Bonn, Germany: Federal Ministry of Education and Research; 2013.

[4] Government of Japan Cabinet Office. Society 5.0 [Internet]. 2019. Available from: http://web.archive.org/ web/20190710182953/https://www8. cao.go.jp/cstp/society5\_0/index.html [Accessed: 2021-02-10]

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[10] Jose R, Ramakrishna S. Materials 4.0: Materials Big Data Enabled Materials Discovery. Applied Materials Today. 2018;10: 127-132. DOI: 10.1016/j. apmt.2017.12.015

[11] Dobrzański LA. Significance of materials science for the future development of societies. Journal of Materials Processing Technology. 2006; 175:133-148. DOI: 10.1016/j. jmatprotec.2005.04.003

[12] Aluminum Market - Industry Analysis, Market Size, Share, Trends, Application Analysis, Growth And Forecast 2019-2025 [Internet]. Available from: https://www.industryarc.com/ Research/Aluminium-Market-Research-503190 [Accessed: 2021-02-10]

[13] Kvackaj T. (Ed.), Aluminium Alloys, Theory and Applications (ID: 44), IntechOpen, 2011, DOI: 10.5772/576, https://www.intechopen. com/books/44

[14] Ahmad Z. (Ed.), Recent Trends in Processing and Degradation of Aluminium Alloys ( ID: 217 ), IntechOpen, 2011, DOI: 10.5772/741, https://www.intechopen.com/books/217

[15] Ahmad Z. (Ed.), Aluminium Alloys - New Trends in Fabrication and Applications (ID: 3053 ), IntechOpen, 2012, DOI: 10.5772/3354, https://www. intechopen.com/books/3053

[16] Sivasankaran S. (Ed.), Aluminium Alloys – Recent Trends in Processing, Characterization, Mechanical behavior and Applications (ID: 6071), IntechOpen, 2017, DOI: 10.5772/68032, https://www.intechopen.com/ books/6071

[17] Cooke K. (Ed.), Aluminium Alloys and Composites ( ID: 8862), IntechOpen, 2020, DOI: 10.5772/ intechopen.81519, https://www. intechopen.com/books/8862

Section 1
