Publisher's Synopsis
Continued advances in the welfare of the human race depend upon the continual development of, and improvement in, the engineering devices that serve our day-to-day needs. Such development and improvement in engineering devices hinges primarily upon the availability of innovative materials which are capable of withstanding the most stringent service conditions. Materials with nano-level microstructural features make up one such class of material that has recently caught the imagination of researchers worldwide. These materials have demonstrated their potential to exhibit very unusual combinations of properties, and have convincingly confounded conventional beliefs.
