| Description |
It is a mystery to me why, in a field as interesting, rich, and important as
ceramics, a basic fundamental text does not exist. My decision to write this
text was made almost simultaneously with my having to teach my first
introductory graduate class in ceramics at Drexel a decade ago. Naturally,
I assigned Kingery, Bowen, and Uhlmann's Introduction to Ceramics as the
textbook for the course. A few weeks into the quarter, however, it became
apparent that KBU's book was difficult to teach from and more importantly
to learn from. Looking at it from the student's point of view it was easy to
appreciate why — few equations are derived from first principles. Simply
writing down a relationship, in my opinion, does not constitute learning;
true understanding only comes when the trail that goes back to first
principles is made clear. However, to say that this book was influenced by
KBU's book would be an understatement — the better word would be
inspired by it, and for good reason — it remains an authoritative, albeit
slightly dated, text in the field.
In writing this book I had a few guiding principles. First, nearly all
equations are derived, usually from first principles, with the emphasis
being on the physics of the problem, sometimes at the expense of mathematical
rigor. However, whenever that trade-off is made, which is not often, it is
clearly noted in the text. I have kept the math quite simple, nothing more
complicated than differentiation and integration. The aim in every case
was to cover enough of the fundamentals, up to a level deep enough to
allow the reader to continue his or her education by delving, without too
much difficulty, into the most recent literature. In today's fast-paced
world, it is more important than ever to understand the fundamentals.
Second, I wanted to write a book that more or less "stood alone" in the
sense that it did not assume much prior knowledge of the subject from the
reader. Basic chemistry, physics, mathematics, and an introductory course
in materials science or engineering are the only prerequisites. In that respect,
I believe this book will appeal to, and could be used as a textbook in, other
than material science and engineering departments, such as chemistry or
physics.
Pedagogically I have found that students in general understand concepts
and ideas best if they are given concrete examples rather than generalized
treatments. Thus maybe, at the expense of elegance and brevity, I have
opted for that approach. It is hoped that once the concepts are well understood,
for at least one system, the reader will be able to follow more advanced
and generalized treatments that can be found in many of the references that I
have included at the end of every chapter.
Successive drafts of this book have been described by some reviewers as
being arid, a criticism that I believe has some validity and that I have tried to
address. Unfortunately, it was simply impossible to cover the range of topics,
at the depth I wanted to, and be flowery and descriptive at the same time (the
book is already over 650 pages long).
Another area where I think this book falls short is in its lack of what I
would term a healthy skepticism (a la Feynman lectures, for instance).
Nature is too complicated, and ceramics in particular, to be neatly packaged
into monosize dispersed spheres and their corresponding models, for
example.
I thus sincerely hope that these two gaps will be filled in by the reader
and especially the instructor. First, a little bit of "fat" should make the
book much more appetizing — examples from the literature or the
instructor's own experience would be just what is required. Second, a dose
of skepticism concerning some of the models and their limitation is required.
Being an experimentalist, I facetiously tell my students that when theory and
experiment converge one of them is probably wrong.
This book is aimed at junior, senior, and first-year graduate students
in any materials science and engineering program. The sequence of
chapters makes it easy to select material for a one-semester course. This
might include much of the material in Chapters 1 to 8, with additional
topics from the later chapters. The book is also ideally suited to a twoquarter
sequence, and I believe there may even be enough material for a
two-semester sequence.
The book can be roughly divided into two parts. The first nine
chapters deal with bonding, structure, and the physical and chemical
properties that are influenced mostly by the type of bonding rather than
the microstructure, such as defect structure and the atomic and electronic
transport in ceramics. The coverage of the second part. Chaps. 11 to 16,
deals with properties that are more microstructure dependent, such as
fracture toughness, optical, magnetic, and dielectric properties. In between
the two parts lies Chap. 10, which deals with the science of sintering and
microstructural development. The technological aspects of processing have
been deliberately omitted for two reasons. The first is that there are a
number of good undergraduate texts that deal with the topic. Second, it is
simply not possible to discuss that topic and do it justice in a section of a
chapter.
Chapter 8 on phase diagrams was deliberately pushed back until the
notions of defects and nonstoichiometry (Chap. 6) and atom mobility
(Chap. 7) were introduced. The chapter on glasses (Chap. 9) follows Chap.
8 since once again the notions introduced in Chaps. 6, 7, and 8 had to be
developed in order to explain crystallization.
And while this is clearly not a ceramics handbook, I have included many
important properties of binary and ternary ceramics collected over 10 years
from numerous sources. In most chapters I also include, in addition to a
number of well-tested problem sets with their numerical answers, worked
examples to help the student through some of the trickier concepts. Whenever
a property or phenomenon is introduced, a section clearly labeled experimental
details has been included. It has been my experience that many students
lacked a knowledge of how certain physical properties or phenomena are
measured experimentally, which needless to say makes it rather fruitless to
even try to attempt to explain them. These sections are not intended, by any
stretch of the imagination, to be laboratory guides or procedures.
Finally, it should also be pointed out that Chaps. 2, 5, and 8 are by no
means intended to be comprehensive — but are rather included for the sake
of completion, and to highlight aspects that are referred to later in the book
as well as to refresh the reader's memory. It is simply impossible to cover
inorganic chemistry, thermodynamics, and phase equilibria in three chapters.
It is in these chapters that a certain amount of prior knowledge by the reader
is assumed.
I would like to thank Dr. Joachim Maier for hosting me, and the
Max-Planck Institute fur Festkorperforchung in Stuttgart for its financial
support during my sabbatical year, when considerable progress was made
on the text. The critical readings of some of the chapters by C. Schwandt,
H. Naefe, N. Nicoloso, and G. Schaefer is also gratefully acknowledged. I
would especially like to thank Dr. Rowland M. Cannon for helping me
sort out, with the right spirit I may add, Chaps. 10 through 12 — his insight,
as usual, was invaluable.
I would also like to thank my colleagues in the Department of Materials
Engineering and Drexel University for their continual support during
the many years it took to finish this work. I am especially indebted to
Profs. Roger Doherty and Antonious Zavaliangos with whom I had many
fruitful and illuminating discussions. Finally I would like to take this
opportunity to thank all those who have, over the many years I was a
student, first at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, followed by the
ones at the University of Missouri-Rolla and, last but not least, MIT,
taught and inspired me. One has only to leaf through the book to appreciate
the influence Profs. H. Anderson, R. Coble, D. Kingery, N. Kreidl, H. Tuller,
D. Uhlmann, B. Wuench, and many others had on this book.
Comments, criticisms, suggestions, and corrections, from all readers,
especially students, for whom this book was written, are most welcome.
Please send them to me at the Department of Materials Engineering.
Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA 19104, or by e-mail at Barsoumw
@ drexel.edu.
Finally, I would like to thank my friends and family, who have been a
continuous source of encouragement and support. - Institute of Physics Publishing |
