Customer Reviews

Phase Transformations in Metals and Alloys, Third Edition (Revised Reprint)

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

 

 

I had the second edition of Porter and Easterling and lost it between moves. I thought the new edition would be updated and have some great new information in it. I was REALLY wrong. The new author has removed some good information that was in the previous edition and the errors in this edition are appalling. Equations are derived incorrectly or the final equation is wrong. It is clear that no one went through this new edition and edited it. If you are going to purchase the book, I would recommend getting the second edition. I am not sure if the end of the chapter problems are the same, but it really isn't worth buying. I wish I could return this and buy the second edition.

This book was not edited properly. There are errors every couple of pages and many equations are wrong in the text, problems, and even solutions. If you have to get this book for a class, make sure you get the next printing which will be out in March.

We used this textbook for a graduate level course.

My first observation was that a lot of the content in this book was copied from other sources without directly giving credit to the original authors. One example is where Reed-Hill credits an original paper whereas these authors just copied it from Reed-Hill and omitted the citation. There are other examples where they copied content directly from Shewmon.

As mentioned above, some content is copied from other sources and this wouldn't be as bad if it weren't for the fact that in most cases they copied the end result without fully explaining the concepts behind it. This can take a lot of your time away from you if you try to derive a formula on your own. I was usually forced to refer to other books when I found myself having a hard time understanding a section or a formula. Sometimes an attempt at an explanation is made but it is not sufficient to explain how the author arrived at the formula or concept. If you are accustomed to textbooks that show you how formulas are derived, this isn't the textbook for you. To make matters worse, some formulas throughout the book are incorrect (and its the 3rd edition!).

The arrangement of the book can sometimes get confusing and you often have to backup and re-read sections to make sure that you are not mixing concepts. I often had to go back to other textbooks and read their sections on a subject and then re-read this book (and then it finally made sense).

For my kinetics of phase transformations course, which was very rigorous, I had to suplement this book with other textbooks: Physical Metallurgy Principles by Robert E. Reed-Hill & Reza Abbascian, Diffusion in Solids by Paul Shewmon, and various research papers or lecture notes to fully understand all of the concepts.

The book is filled with errors. I had to fine my undergraduate text book to make sense of it for my class.

The publisher ruined a decent Materials Science textbook.

The second edition is a 4-5 star book, but the third edition has so many typographical mistakes (especially in the equations) that it is difficult to read. Some of these errors are actually very slippery. For example in one equation, which deals with the surface and volume of a sphere, the r^2 and r^3 are reversed so a student that isn't especially careful will get caught by this.

To make matters worse there have been at least two different printings of this book. Both printings are error filled but the errors are different so when I taught my course there was no way to create a unified errata -- instead you have two. There is no indication in the front matter to indicate the production run so you cannot easily tell which set of errors you've purchased. God help us if the CRC elects to produce a third printing of this edition.

The "Phase Transformations in Metals and Alloys" book describes the basics of materials science. The fundamental principles that can be applied while dealing with issues of higher complexity.

This book is the 1st one which needs to be read and memorized.

the book is exactly what I expected but deliver took way longer than I though. take that into consideration