About the Author

Harold M. Cobb graduated from Yale University in 1943 with a degree in Metallurgical Engineering. He has had a long and varied metallurgical career which began with twenty-two years at companies that produced aircraft gas turbines, propeller blades, helicopters, and fuel elements for nuclear submarines.

He was then on the staff of ASTM for eighteen years as Group Manager of the Metals Division where he was an ex-officio member of twelve of the metals committees. He was a member of ISO Committee TC17 on Steel and Secretary of Subcommittee 12 on Steel Sheet for fifteen years.

In 1970, Cobb was a principal developer of the Unified Numbering System for Metals and Alloys. He developed the individual numbering systems for three categories: Miscellaneous Steels, the K Series; Cast Steels, the J Series; and Steels Specified by Mechanical Properties, and the D Series. He also became the number assigner for the D and K Series of Steels and is still responsible for that activity. For many years he has been an editorial consultant for the triennial ASTM/SAE publication “Metal and Alloys in the Unified Numbering System.” Cobb created and now maintains the Index of Common Names and Trade Names of that book, an Index that has grown to around 20,000 entries.

He has edited twenty-four books on metals, and in 2010 authored the world’s first “History of Stainless Steel.” He has authored several dozen articles including “The Development of the Unified Numbering System for Metals (UNS),” “The Naming and Numbering of Stainless Steels,” and “What’s in a Name?” He has worked at various times as an editorial consultant for ASM International, the American Society for Testing & Materials, the Association for Iron & Steel Technology, The Society of Automotive Engineers and the Specialty Steel Industry of North America.

Cobb is also a Guest Editor for Stainless Steel World, a Dutch magazine, and creates a monthly feature story under the byline “Cobb’s Corner.”

He holds a patent on a process for manufacturing fuel elements for nuclear submarines. He is a Life Member of ASM International, a member of ASTM and Committee A-1 on Steel, Stainless Steel and Related Alloys.