Offering a solid, basic, 'real-world' background on materials processing and properties, this up-to-date text exposes readers to holistic, integrated, and concurrent engineering approaches in design - helping them understand how the material selection was processed, how it is going to be fabricated, and how it is going to be used. Introducing readers to the methodology of engineering design, the book shows how materials selection comes into play during the design of a component or a structure, and examines such engineering requirements as stress, mode of loading, corrosion, and performance efficiencies of materials. Readers are acquainted with the factors of costs and statutory requirements, including environmental regulations and recycling, and case studies are integrated throughout to illustrate the selection process. For mechanical, aerospace, and civil engineers.

Now for what I disliked: The level of coverage is very elementary, and the example problems reflect this. They're overly simplistic, often of the plug-and-chug variety. Because of this I got the impression several times that Dr. Mangonon really didn't know what he was writing about in a few areas. There are also typos and mistakes sprinkled throughout. For example, I made a decision in my work based on data I got from this book. The data turned out to be a typo, and I had to do some damage control. I could forgive a few typos; I mean, we're only human. But this book has more than what I'd consider to be an average amount.

The typography is inconsistent also. In some equations variables are italicized, but in many others they're not. This might seem to be a minor point, but this inconsistency becomes obvious the more you read this book. The effect to me was that the book didn't fully have that 100% professional layout look. Finally, the index is just horrible. It's very, very skimpy. If you're trying to find something using the index, God be with you, because you're going to need it.