Physical Metallurgy and Mechanical Properties of Materials: A Symposium: Foreword

The Engineering Mechanics Division Committee on Mechanical Properties of Materials conceived of the Symposium on Physical Metallurgy and Mechanical Properties of Materials as a means of summarizing, for the civil engineering profession, the current state of knowledge and some of the most recent developments in the understanding of materials behavior. The subjects of ductility, creep, brittle fracture, and fatigue have become of increasing concern in engineering applications, to the point where phenomenological descriptions of these aspects of materials behavior are becoming less than adequate for our needs. In the present “Age of Materials,” the problems of providing the materials suitable for the anticipated service conditions of many engineering applications require that all engineers be familiar with the latest and best of information pertaining to materials behavior. The practicing engineer must be cognizant of the rapidly growing field of materials science, which is so significant that, in many cases, it is causing large scale revision of engineering college curricula. The accompanying two papers are from a group of five papers that constituted a Symposium in the January 1960 and December 1960 Journals of the Engineering Mechanics Division.