05/6/2004 -
An Introduction to Materials Engineering and Science for Chemical and Materials Engineers (2004)
by Brian S. Mitchell
ISBN 0-471-43623-2. John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, New Jersey. 2004. Hardcover. 954 pages. $145.
| REVIEWED BY: | Todd Hufnagel, Johns Hopkins University
|
The vitality of materials science and engineering has two origins: It is an inherently interdisciplinary field, and it continually embraces new technologies and fields of study. Materials science shares these traits with bioengineering, an emerging discipline that encompasses medicine, biology, chemistry, and physics, as well as mechanical and electrical engineering, among others. Materials, too, are integral to bioengineering, so it is no surprise that biomaterials (and "soft" materials more generally) is an exciting area, particularly to undergraduate students in materials science and engineering, many of whom are more interested in tissue engineering than physical metallurgy.
It is inevitable that in any rapidly evolving discipline, the available textbooks will lag behind the state of knowledge. Although introductory texts in materials science reflect some of this evolution, the coverage of topics in most texts remains uneven. They reflect the development of the field, with a strong emphasis on inorganic materials (especially metals and alloys) for structural applications. When biomaterials are mentioned in these texts, it is usually in the context of materials for medical implants, and not biological or biologically-inspired materials, which are the subject of the greatest current interest.
Mitchell's "An Introduction to Materials Engineering and Science for Chemical and Materials Engineers" represents the first of what will be a new generation of introductory texts that treat all classes of materials-metals, ceramics, polymers, composites, and "biologics" equally. (Mitchell uses "biologics" to refer to all biological, biologically inspired, and biomedical materials.) For instance, six of the eight chapters have the same structure, consisting of an introductory section, followed by sections on metals and alloys, ceramics and glasses, polymers, composites, and biologics. While this might not be the soundest pedagogical strategy, it does illustrate that the newer topics (and biological materials in particular) receive more than cursory coverage. Such a broad, topical view of materials science is the most appealing aspect of Mitchell's book, and many instructors will want to examine it for this reason alone.
The book treats some topics at a higher level than is usual for introductory texts. In thermodynamics, for instance, the author derives the Gibbs phase rule (a topic that appears only as separate supplement to Callister's Materials Science and Engineering: An Introduction), spends a couple of pages on solution thermodynamics, and introduces binary phase diagrams by discussing free energy-composition diagrams. These sections may work well for a student who has already taken a course in thermodynamics, such as juniors or seniors in other engineering disciplines who are taking a survey course in materials. On the other hand, they may be too terse for students approaching the subject for the first time. An instructor in an introductory course would have to decide whether to spend the time to develop these topics in more detail.
Of greater concern are a number of errors. For instance, in one place we are told that sodium chloride has a simple cubic structure, although another section correctly identifies it as face-centered cubic. The section on mechanics of materials states that an isotropic material has three independent elastic constants, when in fact there are only two. Such obvious errors can be pointed out and corrected by the instructor, but more subtle errors may slip by. In the introductory chapter, for instance, Mitchell correctly points out that elements are often useful in their own right as engineering materials. But as examples he lists (among others) gold and silver jewelry, copper pipes, aluminum cans, and tungsten light bulb filaments—all of which are alloys, not elements, and some of them quite sophisticated alloys, at that. In an introductory text some leeway should be given for glossing over details, but accuracy ought not be sacrificed to make a point.
The volume itself is high quality, nicely typeset. There are no color figures; all of the figures are gray scale or line drawings, most of which are reprinted or adapted from other sources. The number of chapter-end problems is small; for instance, there only 18 in the chapter on mechanical properties (which covers elastic and plastic deformation and failure of all classes of materials). There are appendices containing data on properties and composition of many materials, including some (such as surface and interfacial energies and diffusivities) that can be difficult for beginning students to track down. But there are also odd gaps; for instance, the yield and tensile strengths of dozens of nonferrous alloys are given, but not the modulus of elasticity or Poisson's ratio, and there are no data on any ferrous alloys at all.
In summary, this text will appeal to students and instructors who desire a broader picture of materials science and engineering than is available from other introductory texts, particularly with regard to biological and biologically-inspired materials. But the level at which some topics are covered, and some errors, may make it more useful as supplemental material, rather than as the sole text for a course. |
