Abstract
Successful design of materials and manufacturing processes requires the availability of reliable materials data. Commercial alloys usually contain a large number of elements, and the needed data for the design of new materials and processes are rarely available. The CALPHAD (CALculation of PHAse Diagrams) method enables the development of thermodynamic and property databases, that in conjunction with extrapolation methods of the descriptions of binary and ternary systems to higher-order systems, allow the calculation of data for higher-order systems. The results obtained from CALPHAD calculations have been shown to be invaluable in the design of new materials. This review presents an overview of the CALPHAD method, software tools and databases and gives examples of its application.