Max Hansen and His Successors Phase Diagram Databases

The crucial role that phase diagrams play in materials science, and the consequential need for compilations like Hamsen s, has been memorably portrayed in a lecture by Massalski (1989). 

Further, since 1993, Effenberg has edited the Red Book , annual summaries of developments in the world literature of phase diagrams. 

In addition to all the metallic phase diagrams, a series of volumes devoted to ceramic systems have been published since 1964 by the American Ceramic Society and is still continuing. The original title was Phase Diagrams for Ceramists, now it is named Phase Equilibria Diagrams. Some 25,000 diagrams, binary and ternary mostly, have been published to date. There is no compilation for polymeric systems, since little attention has been devoted to phase diagrams in this field up to now. 

In addition to printed compilations, more and more of the information is available on CD-ROM and latterly also on-line on the internet. This last is a feature of the service provided by MSI, Materials Science International Services in Stuttgart. This organisation, under the working name of MSIT Workplace (http //www.msiwp.com), provides information on the entire corpus of phase diagram compilations. 

A long history of distinguished contributions does not suffice, nowadays, to save a research institution from casual destruction. 

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