Lightweight Materials: Understanding the Basics

This book covers the properties, processing, and applications of lightweight materials- aluminum, magnesium, beryllium, titanium, titanium aluminides, engineering plastics, structural ceramics, and composites with polymer, metal, and ceramic matrices. The book begins with a brief history of lightweight materials development during the 20th century, and moves into the basic metallurgy, properties of the available alloys, processing, and applications of each of the lightweight materials. The book's final chapter covers methodologies used in the general materials selection process, specific guidelines for each of the lightweight materials, and the importance of the automotive sector to the lightweight materials industries. This book is intended primarily for technical personnel who want to learn more about lightweight materials. It would be useful to designers, structural engineers, material and process engineers, manufacturing engineers, production personnel, faculty, and students. The book's unique feature is that it provides a single-source reference that covers all of the major types of lightweight materials.