Customer Reviews

Physical Metallurgy Principles

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love materials science and as a bibliophile I anticipated the release this new edition for months. Surely for that price and the 15 year interim since the last edition, I expected a grand volume updated with multicolored illustrations, supplementary sidebars, interactive CD, example problems - sometime suitable for bedtime reading at my wife's side. But alas.

Well, at least the 4th Ed. has a nicer cover, and some of the typos were corrected. The content is still excellent even though the authors had the audacity to omit two chapters on fracture mechanics "to increase the focus of the text" - okay.

My advise: Buy the 3rd edition instead. You'll be getting more for less.

This is in reference to the hard-cover 3rd edition.

The book is good for reference, with just enough detail to be useful in every topic of materials science. You don't normally find atomic structure, microscopy, dislocation theory and fracture mechanics in one volume. It even has basic thermodynamics and diffusion. BUT because it attempts to be comprehensive, it doesn't have enough room to go into depth in all the topics.

I think this book should be titled "Introduction to Materials Science, before the nano-polymer revolution." I think it would be a better title.

I think this is how the book was written:
1. Take a intro to materials book
2. take out electro-opti-magnetic properties
3. add fracture mechanics.
4. make it thicker.

If you want to learn the subject, I think there are better books that are easier to read. But if you want to pull it off your shelf to read bits and pieces, this is pretty good.

From the 1960s to the 1980s the possibilty of teaching metallurgy within the context of the general physical and chemical principles of materials science really existed.
Unfortunately, the calibre of metallurgy teachers was not high-minded enough to meet this challenge. (Having tenure did not help make them want to change either, perhaps.)
Today, the new materials (engineering ceramics, optical materials, magnetic materials, superconductors, etc) are in the ascendant and the metallurgy staff are comfortably outnumbered in all materials science departments by ceramicists, polymer scientists, nanotechnologists, biomaterials scientists, etc.
Demand for a career in metallurgy is very low now.
So while a unified approach to presenting physical metallurgy is desirable from the point of view of materials science students (who have to learn the basics even if they do not want to focus on metals), the possibility of getting a book is even lower today than ever before : unless we discover revolutionary new alloys/processing routes, the market is simply too limited.
The latter fact is reflected in the price of this book.
I got my old 3rd edition in the early 1990s for around £50.
Even allowing for inflation, surely the cheaper book production of today's world can allow for a price of $100 or so ?
I think the authors may be being too greedy here . . . .

Great Book for starters although there are certain places where the explanation is not sufficient. But it does introduce one to many concepts in this area over which the interested reader might build up.

It has been three years since I had taken a material science-like course. So, I had hoped, that by opening this book, I would relearn the concepts I had forgotten.

Focus:
An intense look at the physcial metallurgy of metals, beginning with methods, going to crystallography, phase diagrams, and focusing on specific metals (iron-carbon, steels, etc.).

Good:
This book goes into great details. Metallography, crystallography are explained, many concepts are in great depth.

Bad:
This is absolutely not a good book if you don't know much on the subject or are rusty (like me). A lot of time is spent on the intricacies on microscopy. Many of the concepts are presented in too much detail. I feel that instead of learning about the properties of materials and material selection that I spend most of the time learning about every detail involved in the creation of dislocations. While this is very informative, as an engineer, I need to be able to select apropos materials, not spout how an electron microscope works or the fine details in edge dislocation. Homework problems are odd. And would it hurt if the pictures could have been colored?

Overall:
Again, good reference. Bad at teaching or reteaching you material science.

I believe that this book is an excellent text for understanding physical metallurgy for the beginner . This is also an excellent reference manual for later information.