Materials science and engineering

AS REVIEWED BY ELSEVIER'S MATERIALS & DESIGN ISSUE 3 VOL 29 2008 BY K.L EDWARDS, FACULTY OF BUSINESS, COMPUTING & LAW, UNIVERSITY OF DERBY, UK "This book describes the structure, properties, processing and performance relationships of materials and their use in engineering. The latter aspect is mostly lacking in a lot of materials texts and it is through their judicious choice and application that materials are appreciated in technological advancement. All categories of materials are considered, namely metals, ceramics, polymers and composites. This book competes in a rather crowded market sector of materials books but has a unique design-orientated approach, which should help set it apart from the regular texts that appear on the subject. The authors, Prof G S Upadhyaya and Dr Anish Upadhyaya from Indian Institute of Technology, are established materials researchers, publishing widely in the fields of materials and metallurgy. A foreword by Prof. Guenter Petzow from the Max Planck Institute for metals research in Germany, acknowledges the invaluable linkage between materials science and engineering through straightforward explanation and sensitivity to student learning.The book is logically organised into 12 integrated chapters that gradually builds the subject from fundamentals to applications, providing the opportunity for students and practitioners to readily access information at an appropriate stage. The early part of the book introduces materials science fundamentals and materials properties, followed by a key chapter describing engineering materials (by class) in detail. This is followed by a series of chapters on materials processing, including forming, removal and joining and surface modification. The final and by far the largest chapter, titled materials design, contains an extensive range of materials case studies, forty four in total, that blend real world examples and principles from earlier chapters in the book. This chapter is clearly the high point of the book, which all the preceding chapters prerequisite, discriminating it against more conventional books on the subject. The chapter also includes important sections on materials and materials process selection, which are vital to the optimal use of materials in practical situations.The book is very well illustrated, with a good selection of high quality line diagrams, graphs and tables. The scanned images from external sources are of relatively poor quality by still clear, and all these images have full details of their source included to follow up further information if considered necessary. Although the use of micrographs is minimal, some micrographs omit their magnification detail. There are also some very minor typographical problems and figure inaccuracies noted, which tend to creep into the production of work of this magnitude. This is a quality textbook and although reasonably self-contained, usefully complements materials data books for more advanced materials selection and engineering problem solving.Each chapter contains several detailed worked examples, and to test understanding, each chapter concludes with a large selection of questions and problems (with answers). This feature is clearly useful for teaching purposes but also helps exemplify highly technical and often abstract theory, reinforcing students' learning. The units used are predominantly metric but some imperial units are included from external sources. Where possible, the author has taken the trouble to convert the units. Each chapter also concludes with a list of key references (or bibliography) of textbooks, although no papers are listed. This is not detrimental because this is not a research book, and still an advantage over a lot of books that do not even provide such reading lists. The Index is useful but disappointingly short for the book, but this is compensated by the detailed chapter contents.The breadth of treatment makes this book suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate materials science and engineering (including design and manufacturing) taught courses. This book is extremely good value for money and highly recommended as a teaching text, its primary purpose, but also as a reference book for professional practice in materials or related disciplines -- K L Edwards University of Derby, UK 2008 Lire la suite...