The first comprehensive book to focus on ultra-high temperature ceramic materials in more than 20 years Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics are a family of compounds that display an unusual combination of properties, including extremely high melting temperatures (>3000 C), high hardness, and good chemical stability and strength at high temperatures. Typical UHTC materials are the carbides, nitrides, and borides of transition metals, but the Group IV compounds (Ti, Zr, Hf) plus TaC are generally considered to be the main focus of research due to the superior melting temperatures and stable high-melting temperature oxide that forms in situ. Rather than focusing on the latest scientific results, Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics: Materials for Extreme Environment Applications broadly and critically combines the historical aspects and the state-of-the-art on the processing, densification, properties, and performance of boride and carbide ceramics. In reviewing the historic studies and recent progress in the field, Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics: Materials for Extreme Environment Applications provides: * Original reviews of research conducted in the 1960s and 70s * Content on electronic structure, synthesis, powder processing, densification, property measurement, and characterization of boride and carbide ceramics. * Emphasis on materials for hypersonic aerospace applications such as wing leading edges and propulsion components for vehicles traveling faster than Mach 5 * Information on materials used in the extreme environments associated with high speed cutting tools and nuclear power generation Contributions are based on presentations by leading research groups at the conference "Ultra-High Temperature Ceramics: Materials for Extreme Environment Applications II" held May 13-19, 2012 in Hernstein, Austria. Bringing together disparate researchers from academia, government, and industry in a singular forum, the meeting cultivated didactic discussions and efforts between bench researchers, designers and engineers in assaying results in a broader context and moving the technology forward toward near- and long-term use. This book is useful for furnace manufacturers, aerospace manufacturers that may be pursuing hypersonic technology, researchers studying any aspect of boride and carbide ceramics, and practitioners of high-temperature structural ceramics.

Since its inception in 1966, the series of numbered volumes known as "Semiconductors and Semimetals" has distinguished itself through the careful selection of well-known authors, editors, and contributors. The "Willardson and Beer" Series, as it is widely known, has succeeded in publishing numerous landmark volumes and chapters. Not only did many of these volumes make an impact at the time of their publication, but they continue to be well-cited years after their original release. Recently, Professor Eicke R. Weber of the University of California at Berkeley joined as a co-editor of the series. Professor Weber, a well-known expert in the field of semiconductor materials, will further contribute to continuing the series' tradition of publishing timely, highly relevant, and long-impacting volumes. Some of the recent volumes, such as "Hydrogen in Semiconductors, Imperfections in III/V Materials, Epitaxial Microstructures, High-Speed Heterostructure Devices, Oxygen in Silicon, " and others promise that this tradition will be maintained and even expanded. Reflecting the truly interdisciplinary nature of the field that the series covers, the volumes in "Semiconductors and Semimetals" have been and will continue to be of great interest to physicists, chemists, materials scientists, and device engineers in modern industry.

The certification of the structural integrity of buildings, bridges, and mechanical components is one of the main goals of engineers. For civil engineers especially, understanding the tools available for infrastructure analysis is an essential part of designing, constructing, and maintaining safe and reliable structures. Fracture and Damage Mechanics for Structural Engineering of Frames: State-of-the-Art Industrial Applications outlines the latest computational tools, models, and methodologies surrounding the analysis of wall and frame load support and resilience. Emphasizing best practices in computational simulation for civil engineering applications, this reference work is invaluable to postgraduate students, academicians, and engineers in the field.

Avionics often serves as the tip of the spear for research into user-interface and systems usability in aviation. However, this emphasis on flashy, technology-driven design can come with a cost: the sacrifice of practical utility, which, in the high-stakes environment of military aviation, can lead directly to catastrophe. Mission Adaptive Display Technologies and Operational Decision Making in Aviation explores the use of adaptive and assistive technologies in aviation to establish clear guidelines for the design and implementation of such technologies to better serve the needs of both military and civilian pilots. Benefiting from the authors' combined experience of more than 40 years in the aviation industry and over 25,000 flight-hours, this volume targets a wide audience of engineers and business professionals. This premier reference source covers topics of interest to aviators and engineers, including aerodynamic systems design, operational decision theory, user interface design, avionics, and concepts and cases in flight operations, mission performance, and pilot training.

This book will provide a comprehensive overview on the green approach to the research and industrialization of plastic materials. An effort will be made to offer to the reader a critical perspective concerning both oil-based plastics and novel bio-based and waste-derived polymer formulations. A special focus on bio-innovation in the area of organic materials will also be delivered.

Over the past few decades, there has been unprecedented progress in the design of versatile biopolymer-based nanoplatforms for pharmaceutical and biomedical applications, particularly due to their attractive traits, including excellent biocompatibility, outstanding biodegradability, low immunogenicity, and facile chemical modifiability. Biopolymer-Based Nanomaterials in Drug Delivery and Biomedical Applications serves as a clear and detailed body of information on the synthesis and characterization of biopolymer-based materials in nanomedicine. This book describes various nanomaterials consisting of biopolymers including polysaccharides (i.e., derived from plants, animals, bacteria, algae, and fungi) and polypeptides in terms of their structures, synthetic protocols, and characterization and uses as therapeutic drugs and gene delivery carriers and in other biomedical fields. The chapters of this book, which are contributed by internationally renowned scholars working in the arena of biopolymer-based nanomaterials, would offer a wide vision on the potential future applications of these nanomaterials in the delivery and targeting of bioactive molecules of pharmaceutical interests and in tissue engineering, biosensing, bioimaging, and diagnostic purposes. The state-of-the-art information presented in the book would also encourage young investigators and researchers to further bring cutting-edge developments in the field of nanomedicine in the near future.

The book focuses on the development of high performance, high efficiency electroactive polymers (EAPs), and electromechanically active polymers by controlling molecular chemical structure and morphology for all applications. This book is ideal for academicians and researchers in polymer and materials science.

Externally tunable properties allow for new applications of magnetic hybrid materials containing magnetic micro- and nanoparticles in sensors and actuators in technical and medical applications. By means of easy to generate and control magnetic fields, changes of the internal particle arrangements and the macroscopic properties can be achieved. This monograph delivers the latest insights into multi-scale modelling, experimental characterization, manufacturing and application of those magnetic hybrid materials.

This book provides an introduction to topological matter with a focus on insulating bulk systems. A number of prerequisite concepts and tools are first laid out, including the notion of symmetry transformations, the band theory of semiconductors and aspects of electronic transport. The main part of the book discusses realistic models for both time-reversal-preserving and -violating topological insulators, as well as their characteristic responses to external perturbations. Special emphasis is given to the study of the anomalous electric, thermal, and thermoelectric transport properties, the theory of orbital magnetisation, and the polar Kerr effect. The topological models studied throughout this book become unified and generalised by means of the tenfold topological-classification framework and the respective systematic construction of topological invariants. This approach is further extended to topological superconductors and topological semimetals. This book covers a wide range of topics and aims at the transparent presentation of the technical aspects involved. For this purpose, homework problems are also provided in dedicated Hands-on sections. Given its structure and the required background level of the reader, this book is particularly recommended for graduate students or researchers who are new to the field.

Integrated Design of Multiscale, Multifunctional Materials and Products is the first of its type to consider not only design of materials, but concurrent design of materials and products. In other words, materials are not just selected on the basis of properties, but the composition and/or microstructure iw designed to satisfy specific ranged sets of performance requirements. This book presents the motivation for pursuing concurrent design of materials and products, thoroughly discussing the details of multiscale modeling and multilevel robust design and provides details of the design methods/strategies along with selected examples of designing material attributes for specified system performance. It is intended as a monograph to serve as a foundational reference for instructors of courses at the senior and introductory graduate level in departments of materials science and engineering, mechanical engineering, aerospace engineering and civil engineering who are interested in next generation systems-based design of materials.
Key Features:
* First of its kind to consider not only design of materials, but concurrent design of materials and products.
* Treatment of uncertainty via robust design of materials
* Integrates the "materials by design approach" of Olson/Ques Tek LLC with the "materials selection" approach of Ashby/Granta
* Distinquishes the processes of concurrent design of materials and products as an overall systems design problem from the field of multiscale modeling
* Systematic mathematical algorithms and methods are introduced for robust design of materials, rather than ad hoc heuristics--it is oriented towards a true systems approach to design of materials and products

This book provides an up-to-date overview on the membrane technology for the drinking water treatment. The applications of PVDF-TiO2 nanowire hybrid ultrafiltration membrane, nanofiltration membrane, forward osmosis membrane, etc. in water treatment are discussed in detail. With abundant practical examples, the book is an essential reference for scientists, students and engineers in municipal engineering, environmental engineering, chemical engineering, environmental chemistry and material science.

Gene therapy as a potential method for treatment of genetic disorders and other malignancies as well as treatment of many cancers has attracted a great amount of attention in recent years. Current research focuses on stable and smart drug/gene delivery systems, including controlled release. Smart nanostructures have been considered as a promising approach when applied to drug and gene delivery systems, and could solve the problems related to the inefficient transfer of medication to the affected cells.