The book Materials Engineering has a crystal structure approach to bonding, structure, and how they relate to the properties of materials. However, it does not describe materials processing and microstructure or materials characterization. The subject is covered in 30 chapters (630 pages). The authors use common raw and industrial materials to explain the symmetry relationships in crystals and molecules.
After the introductory chapter, the next three chapters describe the primary raw materials on earth: minerals, water, atmospheric air, and fossil fuels. The bonding between different atoms and ions is discussed in the third chapter and is immediately related to hardness, melting points, and boiling point topics in the fourth chapter. Chapters 5 and 6 discuss the geometry and morphology of crystals, crystal systems, and the theoretical density of crystalline solids. The connecting line of thought is always the crystal structure, or its absence in amorphous materials.
There are several figures in these introductory chapters describing different crystal structures and molecules and pointing to the importance of symmetry before its formal definition in Chapter 7. The text is fluent and resembles a teacher in a classroom who brings examples related to raw and synthetic materials to pinpoint the theory. Many tables and figures are used to provide hints for the behavior of materials. Whenever possible, the authors include “rules of thumb” related to materials properties.
Chapters 8–12 present covalent, ionic, metallic, molecular, and polymeric materials before going back to the fundamental theory, Pauling’s rules, bond valence, structure-field maps, and crystal field theory in Chapters 13 and 14. Since the text is an introduction to materials engineering, advanced details are not included, but the related physics and chemistry are substituted by figures and tables that provide excellent insight.
Chapters 15 and 16 introduce solid solutions and defects in crystals, with a brief presentation of the Kröger–Vink notation for ionic point defects. The authors finish the general introduction to materials by discussing amorphous materials, gases, liquids, and glasses, pointing out the absence of long-range symmetry.
From Chapter 19 onward, the book takes an eclectic approach, mixing chapters on some particular materials, silica and silicates (Chapter 19), and cement and concrete (Chapter 21), with chapters on fundamental properties and different materials as examples, such as an introduction to phase transformations (Chapter 20), surfaces and catalysis (Chapter 22), Neumann’s Law and tensor properties (Chapter 23), thermal properties (Chapter 24), diffusion and ionic conductivity (Chapter 25), electrical conductivity (Chapter 26), optical properties (Chapter 27), dielectrics and ferroelectrics (Chapter 28), magnetism (Chapter 29), and mechanical properties (Chapter 30). For all of these chapters, the reasoning line is the symmetry and crystal structure properties, which are the basis for the physics and chemistry of the materials.
The authors rely heavily on figures (488) and tables (83) to teach how materials properties correlate with crystal structures. A table for the Shannon–Prewitt ionic radii is included as an appendix. Unfortunately, the book does not provide references to deepen the knowledge on the presented topics. Exercises are included in most chapters. Solutions are available online for teachers. Readers will profit from a basic knowledge of matrices and simple three-dimensional geometry. A computer program to draw structures will help to learn and visualize the many examples. This book is for undergraduate students or first-year graduate students, but anyone who researches and works with materials will profit from reading this excellent textbook.
Reviewer: Roberto Ribeiro de Avillez, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
