KINETICS OF MATERIALS

This textbook, reflecting the hands-on teaching experience of its three authors, evolved from Massachusetts Institute of Technology's first-year graduate curriculum in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. It discusses key topics collectively representing the basic kinetic processes that cause changes in the size, shape, composition, and atomistic structure of materials. Readers gain a deeper understanding of these kinetic processes and of the properties and applications of materials. Topics are introduced in a logical order, enabling students to develop a solid foundation before advancing to more sophisticated topics. Kinetics of Materials begins with diffusion, offering a description of the elementary manner in which atoms and molecules move around in solids and liquids. Next, the more complex motion of dislocations and interfaces is addressed. Finally, still more complex kinetic phenomena, such as morphological evolution and phase transformations, are treated. Throughout the textbook, readers are instilled with an appreciation of the subject's analytic foundations and, in many cases, the approximations commonly used in the field. The authors offer many extensive derivations of important results to help illuminate their origins. While the principal focus is on kinetic phenomena in crystalline materials, select phenomena in noncrystalline materials are also discussed. In many cases, the principles involved apply to all materials.