The first attempts to compile critically evaluated ternary phase diagram data were made some 40 years ago. In the present form TERNARY ALLOYS started as a feasibility study in 1984 at the MPI, the Max-Planck Institut für Metallforschung, Stuttgart.
Today Materials Science International Services GmbH, is carrying forward the program in close cooperation with the Max-Planck-Institut für Metallforschung and many other Institutions. The self chosen scope of this work is to provide a reliable basis of phase diagram data on "metallic" ternary systems, such as that there is no more need for multiple retrospective searches and evaluations of the same systems again and again by the material scientists individually.