Preface xvii
The target audience for this book includes students in engineering
and architecture, professional engineers, architects, and product
designers who are interested in exploring how these new materials
and technologies might result in better products or buildings. Firms
and industry groups who are planning to be intimately involved in
the nanotechnology field will find the broad perspective interesting. Obviously, individuals in these fields have quite different backgrounds, interests, and understanding of materials and their
properties as well as technologies. Having a single book address
these multiple audiences is inherently difficult. Designers have
primary goals of making products and buildings interesting, efficient, and useful, with materials being an important enabling
design component. Their interests revolve more around final
design qualities and applications than on achieving a quantitative
understanding of materials and their properties. Many designoriented engineers have similar interests but are more focused on
the way material properties affect design, and they employ quantitative methods to achieve these ends. Material engineers and scientists are clearly interested in fundamental properties and how to
create new materials for broad usage. Therefore, depending on the
reader’s background, the following two paragraphs suggest general
guidelines on how to read this book.
In the field of engineering, second- or third-year undergraduate
students and first-year graduate students will find the book useful
as supplementary reading. These students should find familiar
ground in the more technically oriented discussions of basic material properties in Chapter 4, as will engineers in firms. Chapter 5
on material selection processes based on material attribute charts
will be of great interest to any who have never been exposed to this
approach before and will provide a concise review for those who
have already used them. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 provide a good introduction to classification systems, basic fundamentals, synthesis,
characterization methods, and properties of nanomaterials—information that is currently scattered among many sources and difficult
to find in one place. Obviously, whole in-depth courses could be
built around many of the topics succinctly addressed in these chapters. The intent, however, is to provide a solid conceptual understanding of these topics, not to go into depth. Individuals interested
in further depth should refer to the entries described in “Further
Readings.” The application-oriented sections in Chapters 9, 10, 11,
and 12 provide overviews of ways that nanomaterials and nanotechnologies are either used or poised to be used in practice. Engineers and material scientists not actively engaged in design practices
The target audience for this book includes students in engineering
and architecture, professional engineers, architects, and product
designers who are interested in exploring how these new materials
and technologies might result in better products or buildings. Firms
and industry groups who are planning to be intimately involved in
the nanotechnology field will find the broad perspective interesting. Obviously, individuals in these fields have quite different backgrounds, interests, and understanding of materials and their
properties as well as technologies. Having a single book address
these multiple audiences is inherently difficult. Designers have
primary goals of making products and buildings interesting, efficient, and useful, with materials being an important enabling
design component. Their interests revolve more around final
design qualities and applications than on achieving a quantitative
understanding of materials and their properties. Many designoriented engineers have similar interests but are more focused on
the way material properties affect design, and they employ quantitative methods to achieve these ends. Material engineers and scientists are clearly interested in fundamental properties and how to
create new materials for broad usage. Therefore, depending on the
reader’s background, the following two paragraphs suggest general
guidelines on how to read this book.
In the field of engineering, second- or third-year undergraduate
students and first-year graduate students will find the book useful
as supplementary reading. These students should find familiar
ground in the more technically oriented discussions of basic material properties in Chapter 4, as will engineers in firms. Chapter 5
on material selection processes based on material attribute charts
will be of great interest to any who have never been exposed to this
approach before and will provide a concise review for those who
have already used them. Chapters 6, 7, and 8 provide a good introduction to classification systems, basic fundamentals, synthesis,
characterization methods, and properties of nanomaterials—information that is currently scattered among many sources and difficult
to find in one place. Obviously, whole in-depth courses could be
built around many of the topics succinctly addressed in these chapters. The intent, however, is to provide a solid conceptual understanding of these topics, not to go into depth. Individuals interested
in further depth should refer to the entries described in “Further
Readings.” The application-oriented sections in Chapters 9, 10, 11,
and 12 provide overviews of ways that nanomaterials and nanotechnologies are either used or poised to be used in practice. Engineers and material scientists not actively engaged in design practices