This exceptionally readable reference offers current and cutting edge information on “materials.” —Knowledge that can simplify and make living more enjoyable for people who maintain households, and purchase such life necessities as automobiles and houses. It helps create informed and intelligent consumers who know how to care for and maintain the things they purchase, and maintain the only place we have to live, namely this earth—which is running out of its natural raw materials and is being polluted with the products of our technological world. Chapter topics include engineering materials technology; nature and family of materials; processing and structure of solid materials; and properties, degradation, failure, and selection of materials. These subjects cover metallic, polymeric, ceramic, and composite materials. For anyone who works and/or lives with materials.
Life Cycle Analysis of products and systems has become an industry imperative in recognition of the need for green design and manufacturing for a sustainable environment. This edition effectively weaves in Life Cycle Analysis as related to the total Materials Cycle now being adopted on a global scale.
The book's extensive index and handy tables qualify it as a useful "ready reference," on the job or elsewhere.
You will learn about engineering materials and many associated topics through an integrated approach centering around innovative trends in design and manufacturing that often focus on environmentally friendly processes and products. Special strategies and clear explanations clarify the relationships among the following major facets of materials technology:
STRUCTURES must be understood to grasp the values and limitations of materials. Materials engineering has developed many approaches to changing structures. An understanding of micro and macro structures leads to knowledge of the new "designed" structures of our advanced materials, which result from many new methods of synthesis and processing.
PROCESSING is studied in terms of how raw materials determine certain processes and how processing changes structure through both traditional and emerging new methods. Effective diagrams, photomicrographs, and photographs promote comprehension of many processes.
PROPERTIES are now controlled better as a result of the many new processes presented in this book. You will learn how designers specify a material's properties for designed materials rather than being limited to off-the-shelf materials. With these selections, designers can meet the demands of our advanced technological society.
SELECTION from the ever-increasing variety of materials requires efficient problem-solving skills as taught in this book. The tables, graphs, and numerous interesting and unusual applications will aid you in learning effective materials selection and consumption of the world's limited material resources.
