Alternate and Equivalent Names

In general, it's rare for a material to be referred to by only one name.

Polymeric materials may be referred to by chemical description (e.g. polyamide) or by trade name (e.g. Nylon). Ceramic materials may be referred to by chemical description (e.g. boron carbide), industry conventional name (e.g. fused silica), or standard designation (e.g. any IEC 60672 type). Finally, almost any metal can be referred to by a number of equivalent or comparable designations given out by various national and supernational standards bodies.

Since most metals are defined by some set of alloy composition ranges, it's possible for non-identical definitions to overlap to some degree. Whether two partially-overlapping alloy definitions are considered equivalent or not is, to a large extent, a matter of industry convention. The MakeItFrom.com database generally uses North American standard designations as the primary name for metals, while also listing some important comparable and equivalent names from other systems. In some cases, European standard alloys are presented separately.