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Review Essays of Academic, Professional & Technical Books in the Humanities & Sciences

 

Materials Sciences

Functional Materials: Electrical, Dielectric, Electromagnetic, Optical and Magnetic Applications, (With Companion Solution Manual) by Deborah D. L. Chung (Engineering Materials for Technological Needs: World Scientific Publishing Company) The development of functional materials is at the heart of technological needs and the forefront of materials research. This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date treatment of functional materials, which are needed for electrical, dielectric, electromagnetic, optical, and magnetic applications. Materials concepts covered are strongly linked to applications. Textbooks related to functional materials have not kept pace with technological needs and associated scientific advances. Introductory materials science textbooks merely gloss over functional materials while electronic materials textbooks focus on semiconductors and smart materials textbooks emphasize more on limited properties that pertain to structures.

Functional Materials assumes that the readers have had a one-semester introductory undergraduate course on materials science. The coverage on functional materials is much broader and deeper than that of an introductory materials science course. The book features hundreds of illustrations to help explain concepts and provide quantitative information. The style is general towards tutorial. Most chapters include sections on example problems, review questions and supplementary reading. This book is suitable for use as a textbook in undergraduate and graduate engineering courses. It is also suitable for use as a reference book for professionals in the electronic, computer, communication, aerospace, automotive, transportation, construction, energy and control industries.

Excerpt: The field of materials science and engineering started decades ago with emphasis on structural materials. As the development of structural materials matures and the technological need for functional materials intensifies, the field has moved from an emphasis on structural materials to one on functional materials. The development of functional materials is at the heart of current technological needs and is at the forefront of current materials research. Knowledge of the competing methods for providing a function or a multiplicity of functions is necessary for today's design engineers.

This book is a textbook for use in a course on functional materials, which refer to engineering materials that are for functional applications, such as electrical, dielectric, electromagnetic, optical, and magnetic applications. The functional materials include all types of materials, including metals, polymers, ceramics, composites, carbons and semiconductors. Smart materials and electronic materials are subsets of functional materials covered in this book.

The functions mentioned above are relevant to smart structures, smart fluids, heating, deicing, microelectronics, capacitors, electrical insulation, batteries, computer memories, optics, lighting, lasers, light detectors, photocopying, communication, sensors, structural health monitoring, nondestructive evaluation, electromagnetic interference shielding, low observability (Stealth technology), radio frequency identification (RFID), magnetic recording, actuators, energy harvesting, motors, etc.

Textbooks that are relevant to the subject of functional materials have not kept pace with the technological needs and the associated scientific advances. Textbooks on introductory materials science give rather cursory coverage of functional materials. Limited textbooks on electronic materials are focused on semiconductor materials in relation to electrical and optical functions. Books on smart materials and structures are focused on a relatively small number of specific kinds of dielectric, magnetic and optical properties that are typically used to provide multifunctionality to structures. Furthermore, the coverage of applications is limited in textbooks that are relevant to functional materials, in spite of the importance of linking functional properties to applications in the learning experience. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the science and applications of functional materials.

This book assumes that the readers have had a one-semester introductory undergraduate course on materials science, so that they have the basic background on crystal structures, imperfections and phase diagrams. In this book, the coverage on functional materials is much broader and deeper than that in an introductory materials science course. Due to the limited time for functional materials coverage in an introductory materials science course, this book covers the functional materials topics without assuming that the readers have acquired basic background in any of the functional properties. Thus, this book introduces the scientific concepts behind each functional property from scratch. The introduction of the basic concepts does not involve quantum mechanics, so the physics background required of the readers is basic. The book does not involve complicated organic or inorganic chemistry, so the chemistry background required of the readers is just introductory chemistry. In addition, this book applies the concepts to a large variety of applications, which are relevant to the electronic, communication, information, energy, aerospace, automotive, transportation, homeland security, medical, construction and control industries. All concepts covered are strongly linked to applications.

In order to help the readers learn thoroughly, most chapters include sections on example problems, review questions and supplementary reading. The book features hundreds of illustrations for helping the readers grasp the concepts involved. The illustrations include numerous graphs that contain real data obtained on real materials. The data help solidify the learning experience, in addition to making the book up-to-date.

This book is suitable for use as a textbook in undergraduate and graduate courses. Relevant academic disciplines include materials, chemical, mechanical, electrical, aerospace, civil and industrial engineering.

This book is also suitable for use as a reference book for students and professionals that are interested in the use of functional materials and the development of applications that involve functional material. Relevant industries include electronic, computer, communication, aerospace, automotive, transportation, construction, energy and control industries.

Fracture and Life by Brian Cotterell (Imperial College Press) This book is an interdisciplinary review of the effect of fracture on life, following the development of the understanding of fracture written from a historical perspective. After a short introduction to fracture, the first section of the book covers the effects of fracture on the evolution of the Earth, plants and animals, and man. The second section of the book covers the largely empirical control of fracture from ancient times to the end of the nineteenth century. The final section reviews the development of fracture theory as a discipline and its application during the twentieth century through to the present time. More

An Introduction to Materials Science by Wenceslao Gonzalez-Vinas, Hector L. Mancini (Princeton University Press) Textbook that shows how the emergence of materials science is leading the way in technical innovation. Useful for anyone wanting to get a sense of the field. Materials science has undergone a revolutionary transformation in the past two decades. It is an interdisciplinary field that has grown out of chemistry, physics, biology, and engineering departments. In this book, González-Viñas and Mancini provide an introduction to the field, one that emphasizes a qualitative understanding of the subject, rather than an intensely mathematical one.

The book covers the topics usually treated in a first course on materials science, such as crystalline solids and defects. It describes the electrical, mechanical, and thermal properties of matter; the unique properties of dielectric and magnetic materials; the phenomenon of superconductivity; polymers; and optical and amorphous materials. More modern subjects, such as fullerenes, liquid crystals, and surface phenomena are also covered, and problems are included at the end of each chapter.

An Introduction to Materials Science is addressed to both undergraduate students with basic skills in chemistry and physics, and those who simply want to know more about the topics on which the book focuses.

Excerpt: The science of materials is nowadays one of the most significant and active areas of knowl­edge. Therefore, it is almost impossible to condense into one book an adequate introduction in which the extent and depth of that knowledge are sufficiently reflected. Even so, we make the attempt in this volume.

Contemporary industrial and technological development has been achieved by means of materials constituted of essentially raw substances. The materials have evolved from natural or derived products to current synthetically designed materials whose properties are frequently already defined in advance.

Knowledge from different branches of science such as physics, chemistry, thermody­namics, statistical mechanics, electromagnetism, and quantum mechanics has facilitated the development of the science of materials.

Research on any material requires a synthesis of knowledge, and it is truly amazing how much scientific and engineering work has been done on every material of technological interest over the last century. The progress of recent decades in studying the relation between structures and properties has opened the gates to an astonishing development of new materials and previously unthinkable applications. It is enough to consider the role of a few impurities in electrical conduction in, say, semiconductors to evaluate a material's importance.

Because of a lack of knowledge about the relations between properties and structure, for many centuries technology had to apply trial and error procedures in order to evolve. Today, this knowledge enables us to develop new materials with two industrial advantages: less time and fewer costs. In addition, materials are engineered, that is, their physical, chemical, mechanical, and electrical properties are taken into account. So we can assert that knowledge and technology are strongly associated in the evolution of materials science. Without this close relationship, the costs and time necessary to generate new materials would be enormous. For the reasons expressed above, the great quantity of new materials has helped to increase comfort and has improved communications and health. Summing up, the quality of life has become better.

This book tries to teach undergraduate students—and other people who want to know about fundamental subjects included in the science of materials—enough to connect the properties and structure of materials that today's technology uses. This relation provides the necessary tools to estimate properties by means of calculus techniques available to any science student. Computational methods are essential for this.

Furthermore, at the present time enterprises that produce new materials and research laboratories have developed extensive databases, and thus they can accurately provide the properties of products. For this reason there is no need to repeat here tables of data with no didactic purpose.

Teaching of the science of materials must offer basic principles that permit us, on the one hand, to choose from the sea of data the ones that are correct and suitable for an application, or to calculate them; on the other hand, for new materials designed for a specific aim, teaching must afford the judgment to know which structural elements can yield materials with the properties we desire.

In this book, metallurgical topics such as Fe-C alloys and classical ones like ceramic materials, among others, are missing. We prefer to emphasize materials that are of decisive importance in today's industry, semiconductors, superconductors, optical materials, and the science of surfaces, or frontier topics like fullerenes, quasicrystals, and biocompatible materials. Among these topics are chapters meant to offer an understanding of the fundamentals of the science of materials. Nevertheless, we hope that the absence of classical chapters does not interfere with this book's intelligibility.

Materials of the future will be composites with different organizational levels. Their properties will be measured by selecting molecular components, intermolecular assembly methods, structural order, impurities, and defects. When diversifying and structuring the composition of materials and also working on the structural organization needed for a certain result, humans follow in the steps of nature, where this principle has been achieved to maximum perfection in the constitution of living beings. 

Understanding Solids: The Science of Materials by Richard J. D. Tilley (John Wiley & Sons) (Paperback) is a modern introduction to the structures and properties of solids. Taking an integrated approach, designed to appeal to both science and engineering students, the book develops an understanding of the origin of both physical and chemical properties of solids from a foundation of chemical bonding, which leads naturally to an appreciation of the ways in which atoms can aggregate and so generate solid structures.

The book is divided into five sections covering: structures and microstructures; classes of materials; reactions and transformations; physical properties; and nuclear properties of solids. A broad spectrum of topics illustrates these principles and numerous up-to-date examples of real materials with important applications are included. Each chapter is self-contained and contains both self-assessment style questions as well as traditional problems and exercises, designed to reinforce concepts and enhance understanding of the subject. Further reading suggestions provided in each chapter allow for additional exploration of key concepts. Many chapters contain appendices with more in-depth information on the subject.

  • a modern, integrated approach to the science of materials.

  • equally accessible to both engineers and scientists.

  • carefully structured into self-contained chapters.

  • macro- , micro- and nanoscale properties described.

  • questions in each chapter to enhance student understanding.

Written by an author with many years teaching and research experience, Understanding Solids will prove invaluable to students on traditional materials science and engineering courses as well as those studying chemistry, physics and geology needing an introduction to the science of materials.

Excerpt: This book originated in lectures to undergraduate students in materials science that were later exten­ded to geology, physics and engineering students. The subject matter is concerned with the structures and properties of solids. The material is presented with a science bias and is aimed not only at students taking traditional materials science and engineering courses but also at those taking courses in the rapidly expanding fields of materials chemistry and physics. The coverage aims to be complementary to estab­lished books in materials science and engineering. The level is designed to be introductory in nature and, as far as is practical, the book is self-contained. The chapters are provided with problems and exer­cises designed to reinforce the concepts presented. These are in two parts. A multiple choice `Quick Quiz' is designed to be tackled rapidly and aims to uncover weaknesses in a student's grasp of the fun­damental concepts described. The `Calculations and Questions' are more traditional, containing numer­ical examples to test the understanding of formulae and derivations that are not carried out in the main body of the text. Many chapters contain references to supplementary material (at the end of the book) that bear directly on the material but that would dis­rupt the flow of the subject matter if included within the chapter itself. This supplementary material is intended to provide more depth than is possible otherwise. Further reading sections allow students to take matters a little further. With only one exception, the references are to printed information. In general, it would be expected that a student would initially turn to the Internet for information. Sources here are rapidly located and this avenue of exploration has been left to the student.

The subject matter is divided into five sections. Part 1 covers the building blocks of solids. Chap­ters 1 and 2 centre on atoms and chemical bonding, and Chapter 3 outlines the patterns of structure that results. In this chapter, the important concepts of microstructure and macrostructure are developed, leading naturally to an understanding of why nano-structures possess unique properties. Defects that are of importance are also described here. The intro­ductory material in Chapter 3 is further developed in Chapter 4, which covers phase relations, and Chapter 5 crystallography and crystal structures. Part 2, Chapter 6, is concerned with the traditional trium­virate of metals, ceramics and polymers, together with a brief introduction to composite materials. This chapter provides an overview of a comparative nature, focused on giving a broad appreciation of why the fundamental groups of materials appear to differ so much, and laying the foundations for why some, such as ceramic superconductors, seem to behave so differently from their congeners. Part 3 has a more chemical bias, and describes reactions and transformations. The principles of diffusion are outlined in Chapter 7, electrochemical ideas, which lead naturally to batteries, corrosion and electroplating, are described in Chapter 8. Solid-state transformations, which impinge on areas as diverse as shape-memory alloys, semiconductor doping and sintering are introduced in Chapter 9. Part 4 is a description of the physical properties of solids and complements the chemical aspects detailed in Part 3. The topics covered are those of importance to both science and technology: mechanical pro­perties in Chapter 10; insulators in Chapter 11; magnetic properties in Chapter 12; electronic conductivity in Chapter 13; optical aspects in Chapter 14; and thermal, effects in Chapter 15. Part 5 is concerned with radioactivity. This topic is of enormous importance and, in particular, the disposal of nuclear waste in solid form is of pressing concern.

The material in all of the later sections is founded on the concepts presented in Part 1, that is, proper-ties are explained as arising naturally from the atomic constituents, the chemical bonding, the microstructure and the defects present in the solid. This leads naturally to an understanding of why nanostructures have seemingly different properties from bulk solids. Because of this, nanostructures are not gathered together in one section but are con­sidered throughout the book in the context of the better-known macroscopic properties of the material.

Kinetic Processes: Crystal Growth, Diffusion, and Phase Transitions in Materials by Kenneth A. Jackson (John Wiley & Sons) The formation of solids is governed by kinetic processes, which are closely related to the macroscopic behaviour of the resulting materials. With the main focus on ease of understanding, the author begins with the basic processes at the atomic level to illustrate their connections to material properties. Diffusion processes during crystal growth and phase transformations are examined in detail. Since the underlying mathematics are very complex, approximation methods typically used in practice are the prime choice of approach. Apart from metals and alloys, the book places special emphasis on the growth of thin films and bulk crystals, which are the two main pillars of modern device and semiconductor technology. All the presented phenomena are tied back to the basic thermodynamic properties of the materials and to the underlying physical processes for clarity.

Excerpt: This book is based on a course on Kinetic Processes which I taught for several years in the Materials Science Department at the University of Arizona. This is a required course for first year graduate students, although some of the material contained in the book would be suitable for a lower level course. The course initially derived from a series of lectures which I gave at Bell Labs, augmented by course notes from a similarly titled course at MIT. The content of the book has a highly personal flavor, emphasizing those areas to which I have made scientific contributions. I have concentrated on developing an understanding of kinetic processes, especially those involved in crystal growth, which is, perhaps, the simplest form of a first order trans-formation. The book assumes a basic understanding of thermodynamics, which un­derlies all kinetic processes and can be used to predict transformation kinetics for simple cases. The understanding of the complexities of crystal growth has developed significantly over the past several decades, but it is a wonderfully complex process, with still much to be learned. I have tried to present a coherent account of these processes, based on my view of the subject, which is available at present only in a dispersed form in the published literature, but it has not been assembled and coordinated as I have attempted to do here.

The book concentrates on atomic level processes and on how these processes trans-late into the microscopic and macroscopic descriptions of kinetic processes. It is aimed at a level appropriate for practitioners of materials processing. I have kept the mathe­matics at the minimum level necessary to expose the underlying physics. Many of my mathematically inclined friends will cringe at the simplified treatments which I pre-sent, but nevertheless, I suspect that non-mathematically inclined students will strug­gle with them. My colleagues in the crystal growth community, on the other hand, will cringe at my over-simplified descriptions of how single crystals and thin films, the basic materials for high-tech devices, are produced.

There are two streams of context in this book. One concentrates on basic kinetic processes, and the other on modem applications, where these kinetic processes are of critical importance. These two streams are interleaved. The book starts with an introduction to the basis of classical kinetics, the Boltzmann distribution. The following four chapters deal with diffusion processes in fluids, in amorphous materials, in simple crystals, and in semiconductors. This is followed by Chapter 6, on ion implantation, the important method for doping semiconductors, and includes a discussion of Rutherford backscattering. The next chapter introduces the diffusion equation, and some standard solutions. Chapter 8 deals with Stefan problems which are moving boundary problems encountered in phase transformations. Chapter 9 contains a general description of the kinetic processes involved in phase transformations, and is followed by Chapter 10 which contains a brief description of the methods used for growing single crystals. This is not intended to teach anyone how to grow crystals: there are individual books on several of these methods. Chapter 11 describes segregation at a moving interface, and is followed by Chapter 12, on the interface instabilities which can result from this segregation. These instabilities are described by non-linear equations which have been studied extensively, but are far beyond the scope of this book. Chapter 13 outlines some aspects of chemical kinetic theory, and is followed Chapter 14 on the formal aspects of phase transformations. Chapter 15 treats the in­itial formation of a new phase by a nucleation process. The next few chapters are on atomic processes at surfaces. Chapter 16 outlines adsorption, surface nucleation and epitaxial growth. This treatment only scratches the surface of the knowledge which has been accumulated by surface scientists. Chapter 17 discusses methods for the deposition of thin films, and Chapter 18 is on plasmas, which are used for both deposition and etching. Chapter 19 discusses rapid thermal processing, which is used to control and fine tune thermal annealing. The next few chapters return to fundamental con­siderations. Chapter 20 discusses the kinetics of first order phase transformations, and the following chapter discusses the important role of the surface roughening transition in these processes. The final chapters are on kinetic processes in alloys. Chapter 22 is on equilibrium in alloys and on growth processes in alloys near equilibrium. It is followed by a discussion, in Chapter 23, of phase separation, also known as spinodal decomposition. Chapter 24 is on rapid phase transformations, where kinetic processes modify the usual equilibrium segregation; where the rate of motion of the interface is comparable the rate of diffusive motion of the atoms. Chapter 25 contains a brief account of coarsening, sintering and grain growth, which applies not only to al­loys. Again, much more is known about these processes than could be included here. Chapter 26 presents a discussion of dendritic growth, including a simple math­ematical model. This growth mode is an extreme version of interfacial instabilities as discussed in Chapter 12, and has been the focus of extensive mathematical modeling, including the development of the phase field method. Chapter 27 discusses the for­mation of a two phase solid from a single phase liquid. The final chapter, 28, discusses an important aspect of the formation of the grain structure in metal castings. It is by no means an introduction to the computer models of segregation and fluid flow which are used to design castings today.

Surface Wear: Characterization, Treatment, and Prevention by R. Chattopadhyay (ASM International) Describes the surface properties controlling the wear processes in different environments, and presents techniques for reducing specific type of wear through modification of surface properties. The author characterizes the energy, morphology, and composition of surfaces, and then identifies the mechanisms of wear caused by adhesion, abrasion, erosion, corrosion, and heat. The main section of the book discusses the various surface protection technologies: strain hardening, thermally assisted diffusion processes, hardening by thermal treatment, thin film coatings, and thick film overlays. The final chapters address metal, plastic and ceramic composites that resist wear, and provide a wear diagnosis methodology.

Author introduction: During the last two decades the concept of "engineering" the surface so as to afford protection against environmental degradation has gained importance as part of an effort to conserve natural resources. The engi­neered surface extends the working life of components in hostile environ­ments for both original equipment manufacturer (OEM) and recycled parts. The extension in working life and the process of recycling through reconditioning lead to conservation of material and energy.

Modern equipment and machinery are far more expensive and are designed to work in more hostile environments than their predecessors were (e.g., Intercontinental Ballistic Missile and supersonic jet engine components compared with earlier guns and airplanes). It is imperative, therefore, that the components are protected against environmental degra­dation in order to ensure satisfactory and reliable performance over a pro­longed working life for both engineered and re‑engineered surfaces.

The tribological interaction of the bounding face or surface of a compo­nent with the environment can result in loss of material from the surface. The process that results in the loss of material due to interaction with the environment is known as wear. The characteristic properties of the surface (e.g., surface energy, roughness, microstructure and macrostructure, and composition) play an important part in the wear process. The working environment can cause different types of wear to the components of equipment and machines. The various types of wear can be broadly classi­fied in five major types‑abrasion, adhesion, thermal, erosion, and corro­sion. The effect of the stress field on the wear rate depends on the stress vector (i.e., both on magnitude and direction). The mechanism of material removal from the surface has been explained in terms of cutting, plowing, delamination, pitting, cavitation, and so on, and/or fatigue. The mecha­nism of wear in metals and ceramics is similar to but significantly differ­ent from that of plastic.

A wide variety of materials and processes are available to prevent loss due to wear. These include improvement of the wear‑resistant properties of the surface through work hardening; selective heat treatment (e.g., induction or flame or laser hardening); diffusing in interstitials or substitutionals (C, N, Al, Cr, Zn); conversion coating (P, Cr); thin film coatings such as electroplating, electroless plating, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), physical vapor deposition (PVD), sol‑gel process; and thick film coating by welding and thermal spraying.

Metal, ceramic, or plastic surfaces can be protected against wear either through surface modification or through deposition of wear‑resistant materials. The wear‑resistant overlay materials can be metal, ceramic, plastic, or composite.

It is necessary to identify the predominant type of wear process(es) in order to decide on an appropriate technology for modifying the surface to minimize the wear. The multidisciplinary approach to diagnose wear mode and to prescribe a solution to the wear problem can be most appropriately termed as surface wear prognosis technology.

A recent survey indicates loss due to wear at $200 billion in the United States per year. In this book, an attempt is made to cover various aspects of wear prognosis technology‑a proper understanding of which will result in enormous savings to industry by reducing loss due to wear, while at the same time ensuring the preservation of resources in terms of material, energy, and the environment.

New Handbooks in Material Science should help to streamline physical calculations in alloys.

ASM Specialty Handbook: Nickel, Cobalt, and Their Alloys edited by J. R. Davis (ASM Specialty Handbook: ASM International) A reference work detailing the characteristics, properties, and behavior of nickel, cobalt, and their alloys. Includes information on corrosion behavior, fabrication and finishing of nickel and nickel alloys and cobalt and cobalt alloys. Also includes an alloy index.

 The history and development of nickel and cobalt, as well as their alloys, parallel one another in a number of ways. Ancient man first used nickel in swords and implements fashioned from iron-nickel meteorites. The first authenticated artifact from such a source is what is believed to be a portion of a dagger found at the Sumerian city of Ur (circa 3100 B.C.); analysis has shown it to contain 10.9% nickel. The earliest recorded use of nickel in modern times (i.e., the last few hundred years) was in coins made from "pai-thung," a white copper-nickel alloy first developed in China. Nickel was first identified as an element by Alex F. Cronstedt in 1751 and named nickel from the ore "kupfernickel," so-called by superstitious miners who believed that the ore was bedeviled. The modern nickel industry dates back from the opening of the New Caledonia mines in 1875 and those of Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, in 1886. The first nickel-base alloy developed was "Monell Metal" (now known as Monel alloy 400), a nickel-copper alloy containing nominally 67% nickel with the balance copper. The alloy's origin was derived from the ores of the Sudbury basin in Ontario that contain nickel and copper in approximately the same two-to-one ratio. The trademark for Monel was first registered in 1906. Today nickel is widely used as a key constituent in stainless steels, low-alloy steels, and cast irons, as the base element for many corrosion and heat resistant alloys, as wear or corrosion resistant coatings, and in special-purpose materials such as magnetic alloys and controlled-expansion alloys.

Although Swedish chemist G. Brandt first effected isolation of metallic cobalt in 1735, compounds derived from mineral ores containing cobalt had been used for more than 2000 years as coloring agents (blue and green) for glass and ceramics in Persia and Egypt. Cobalt was a major coloring agent used by Greek glassworkers about the beginning of the Christian era. Chinese pottery produced during the Tang and Ming dynasties (A.D. 600 to 900 and A.D. 1350 to 1650) used cobalt widely, and Venetian glass produced in the early 15th century also shows the use of cobalt. The term "kobold" was used applied by miners in Germany in the 16th century to an ore that did not yield the expected copper when reduced by the normal procedure and emitted dangerous arsenical fumes when roasted. The word means a goblin or "ill-natured fairy." The modern cobalt industry dates back to the opening of the New Caledonia mines in 1875 and the discovery of cobalt-bearing ores in Africa in the early 20th century. The first cobalt-base alloy was a cobalt-chromium alloy containing nominally 25% chromium called "Stellite," which was developed by Elwood Haynes and patented in 1907. Haynes took the name Stellite from the Latin word for star, stella, because of the alloy's permanent starlike luster. Today cobalt is used as a critical alloying element in superalloys, cemented carbides, and high-speed tool steels, as the base element for wear, heat, and corrosion resistant alloys, in magnetic alloys and controlled-expansion alloys, and in various electronic components and chemicals.

In recognition of the importance of these versatile and strategic metals, ASM decided that this Handbook, the eighth to be published in the ASM Specialty Handbook series, would cover the metallurgy, properties, fabrication characteristics, and applications associated with nickel, cobalt, and their alloys. It is intended to provide the most comprehensive and up-to-date information available on these metals that is suitable for engineers, designers, teachers, and students.

Desk Handbook: Phase Diagrams for Binary Alloys provides a thorough summary of material properties.

ALLOY PHASE DIAGRAMS are useful to metallurgists, materials engineers, and materials scientists in four major areas: (1) development of new alloys for specific applications, (2) fabrication of these alloys into useful configurations, (3) design and control of heat treatment procedures for specific alloys that will produce the required mechanical, physical, and chemical properties, and (4) solving problems that arise with specific alloys in their performance in commercial applications, thus improving product predictability. In all these areas, the use of phase diagrams allows research, development, and production to be done more efficiently and cost effectively.

In the area of alloy development, phase diagrams have proved invaluable for tailoring existing alloys to avoid overdesign in current applications, designing improved alloys for existing and new applications, designing special alloys for special applications, and developing alternative alloys or alloys with substitute alloying elements to replace those containing scarce, expensive, hazardous, or "critical" alloying elements. Application of alloy phase diagrams in processing includes their use to select proper parameter; for working ingots, blooms, and billets, fording causes and cures for microporosity and cracks in castings and welds, controlling solution heat treating to prevent damage caused by incipient melting, and developing new processing technology.

In the area of performance, phase diagrams give an indication of which phases are thermodynamically stable in an alloy and can be expected to be present over a long time when the part is subjected to a particular temperature (e.g., in an automotive exhaust system). Phase diagrams also are consulted when attacking service problems such as pitting and intergranular corrosion, hydrogen damage, and hot corrosion.

In a majority of the more widely used commercial alloys, the allowable composition range encompasses only a small portion of the relevant phase diagram. The nonequilibrium conditions that are usually encountered in practice, however, necessitate the knowledge of a much greater portion of the diagram. Therefore, a thorough understanding of alloy phase diagrams in general and their practical use will prove to be of great help to a metallurgist expected to solve problems in any of the areas mentioned above.

In 1900, one of the earliest practical phase diagrams was published by H.W. Bakhuis Rooseboom on the stable Fe-C system. Exactly a century has passed since then. The wealth of knowledge on phase diagrams accumulated in this period has been summarized or evaluated, and published as compendia on various occasions and forms.

The most recent compendium covering the entire set of binary alloy systems was edited by T.B. Massalski et al. Binary Alloy Phase Diagrams, This monumental three volume handbook contained phase diagrams of 2159 binary systems and has been serving as a key reference source in teaching, research, and industry. Approximately 100 papers related to binary alloy phase diagrams have been published each year after 1990, and relevant information has been recorded in the Supplemental Literature Review section in J. Phase Equilibria by this author. As the number of these update diagrams increased, a new comprehensive and yet handy compendium was clearly missing.

This new Desk Handbook: Phase Diagrams for Binary Alloys contains phase diagrams of 2335 systems. An attempt has been made to cover all binary systems for which any phase diagram information was available. Many of such diagrams have already appeared in the above-mentioned three-volume work Binary Alloy Phase Diagrams, or in subsequent compilations published in Journal of Phase Equilibria. However, in comparison with Binary Alloy Phase Diagrams, more than 600 diagrams have been updated and diagrams of more than 170 systems are new in this handbook. Thus, the present collection is the most up-to-date and complete. Also, although many diagrams in this handbook may appear to be identical to those in Binary Alloy Phase Diagrams, all diagrams were redrawn for this handbook in vector format. Accordingly, future research results can be easily integrated into the existing phase diagrams in this book for quick updating without losing quality in resizing.

This Desk Handbook: Phase Diagrams for Binary Alloys is intended for use by all those who need a quick and reliable reference to a graphical phase diagram or crystallographic data for any binary system. In order to make it more portable and affordable for use in any occasion, all diagrams are assembled in one volume, instead of three in Binary Alloy Phase Diagrams. For this objective, the size of each diagram has been reduced by 40% of that in Binary Alloy Phase Diagrams to accommodate three diagrams on one page. However, the presently adopted composition scale is in atomic % and not in weight %. This highlights the presence of phases that occur at stoichiometric, or near stoichiometric compositions. Usually, only one key reference source is provided for each system; however, two or more references are provided if all available sources on the phase diagram of a particular system cannot be reached from one source.

The aim of this Desk Handbook: Phase Diagrams for Binary Alloys was to select the "best" diagram for each system. In order to demonstrate "good" diagrams, an introductory article on phase diagrams entitled "Introduction to Alloy Phase Diagrams" is reprinted from ASM Handbook in the next section. However, quite often, even the best proposed diagram could be judged to involve some phase rule violations, or some unlikely features in specific portions. Except for the very obvious cases, which have been corrected, the problems thus encountered have not been completely adjusted in this handbook because, generally, there are several ways in which it is possible to correct, adjust, or resolve phase diagram errors. Typically, the right solution can be confirmed only experimentally. Indeed, surprisingly often, minor, or even quite major problems have been left unnoticed, even by expert phase diagram researchers. Therefore, it is always desirable to look at published phase diagrams with a degree of caution. Several key points for finding these problems in binary phase diagrams are summarized in the subsequent section entitled "Impossible and Improbable Forms of Binary Phase Diagrams."

This work will be found to be a handy reference for material science calculations.

Classical Mechanics: A Modern Introduction by Martin W. McCall (John Wiley)

Classical Mechanics is a clear introduction to the subject, combining a user-friendly style with an authoritative approach, whilst requiring minimal prerequisite mathematics - only elementary calculus and simple vectors are presumed. The text starts with a careful look at Newton's laws, before applying them in one dimension to oscillations and collisions. More advanced applications - including gravitational orbits, rigid body dynamics and mechanics in rotating frames- are deferred until after the limitations of Newton's inertial frames have been highlighted through an exposition of Einstein's Special Relativity. The examples given throughout are often unusual for an elementary text, although they are made accessible through discussion and diagrams. Complete revision summaries are given at the end of each chapter, together with problems designed to be both illustrative and challenging.

Features:

  • Comprehensive introduction to classical mechanics and relativity
  • Many novel examples, e.g. stability of the universe, failing cats, cricket bats and snooker
  • Includes many problems, with numerical answers
  • Revision notes at the end of each chapter

 Classical Mechanics will prove invaluable for all physics and engineering students taking a first full course in mechanics.

Molecular Symmetry and Group Theory: Second Edition, A Programmed Introduction to Chemical Applications by Alan Vincent (John Wiley)

The new edition of this best-selling textbook address the difficulties that can arise with the mathematics that underpins the study of symmetry, and acknowledges that group theory can be a complex concept for students to grasp. Molecular Symmetry and Group Theory is based around a series of programs that help students learn at their own pace and enable them to understand the subject fully. Readers are taken through a series of carefully constructed exercises, designed to simplify the mathematics and give them a full understanding of how this relates to the chemistry. The second edition has been revised and expanded and includes a new chapter on the projection operator method. This is used to calculate the form of the normal modes of vibration of a molecule and the normalized wave functions of hybrid orbitals or molecular orbitals.

Features:

  • A concise, gentle introduction to symmetry and group theory
  • Takes a programmed learning approach.
  • New material on projection operators
  • the calculation of normal modes of vibration and normalized wave functions of orbitals
 

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