Author Description

Product Description This book has been rewritten to match more closely the emphasis on the structure/properties/performance interplay that is developing in all aspects of technical materials -- both in universities and in industry. The book's new organization emphasizes the generic nature of engineering materials in phenomenon and function and acknowledges traditional classes of materials in the process. Coverage of frontier areas have been added including: toughened ceramics, new polymers, high-temperature superconductors, superhard magnets, and other fiber-optic glasses. From the Inside Flap No course in science or engineering may remain static. Not only does technology advance and scientific understanding increase, the academic framework undergoes changes. Thus, periodic revisions are desirable in an effort to optimize the value of a textbook for students who will be tomorrow's engineers. Developments such as the high-temperature superconductors are exciting, and the scientific data such as that obtained from tunneling electron microscopes provide new insights. During the last decade, however, the evolving structure of the academic environment probably has had a more direct impact on introductory materials courses within the engineering curricula. Whereas academic departments will continue to have specialists in ceramics, in polymers, as well as to hybrid composites. Likewise, graduate students working with polyblends give cognizance to phase immiscibilities and to the microstructure/property relationships utilized by ceramists and metallurgists. Particulate processing is no longer restricted to ceramics, nor are engineering designs using magnets limited to metallic materials. In view of these changes, the majority of the current generation of instructors can easily extend the topics of crystals from single-component metals to binary ceramic compounds, and even introduce simple molecular crystals when they tech an introductory materials course. Likewise, although