Porter and Easterling have written a superb undergraduate phase transformations text. I happened on an advance copy of the book last summer, and proceeded to use it as a text in our required junior phase transformations course of 45 materials science students, The text was very well received and the students performed well.A great deal of hard, careful work has clearly gone into this book. The topics follow a logical succession, and the derivations are clear, direct, and remarkably free of errors, either mathematical or physical. The book is unusually free of the typos which are so especially unsettling to undergraduates who are seeing material for the first time.The book begins with a chapter on thermodynamics, including free energy versus composition diagrams and binary and ternary phase diagrams. The chapter seems well done, though I did not use it.Diffusion is covered well and at some length, from both the phenomenological and atomistic viewpoints. Several "type" solutions to the diffusion equation are presented, along with an analysis of diffusion in ternary and multi phase systems. The analysis of high diffusivity paths is particularly valuable, as is inclusion of values for activation energies and pre-exponential factors for a number of elements and compounds.The structure, energetics, and kinetics of crystal interfaces are presented in a chapter of their own; both interphase boundaries and boundaries in single-phase solids are considered at length. The effect of interface structure on migration kinetics, particle morphology, and transformation strain energy is covered .

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A theory is developed for the quantitative representation of the strain induced transformation of retained austenite in low alloy, TRIP-assisted steels of the type developed for the automobile industry. It is possible, therefore, to calculate the fraction of austenite as a function of the plastic strain, chemical composition, deformation temperature and the starting amount of austenite. The effect of composition and temperature is expressed through the free energy available for transformation. Good agreement has been obtained with published experimental data. The model can be used to investigate the stability of the austenite during plastic deformation.MST/5936

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