Innovations in Everyday Engineering Materials, published 2021, was written by Tarasankar DebRoy, professor of materials science and engineering at Penn State and Sir Harry Bhadeshia FREng, FRS, FNAE the Tata Steel Professor of Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge, UK, and provides many examples of how advances made in everyday engineering materials sustain and define standards of living. The greatest achievements illustrated in the book are from engineers and scientists who have enriched the lives of all people through their intensity, ingenuity, and innovations in man-made materials—no matter how long it took or how many barriers had to be overcome.
“Many young people view science and engineering as difficult, complex, and often disconnect it from every day real-world experiences,” said DebRoy. “We wrote this book for non-specialists to provide a connection between everyone’s daily experiences and materials engineering. The thrills of alternative ways of making engineering materials, and improving structure and properties, projects the vitality of the field that everyone can enjoy.”
Many successful materials and processes in the areas of agriculture, distribution of clean water, transportation, housing, communication, and health care effect the lives of all people. This book offers a behind-the-scenes look at what leads to the creation and application to make materials better and more sustainable from organized research to serendipity in creative settings.
“Our intention with this book is to introduce a few of the key innovations without which our quality of life would be dramatically different. Several stories explain how organized research helped to discover new processes of making important materials and how new materials with unmatched properties are theoretically conceived, tested in the laboratory, mass-produced and deployed for the benefit of all,” said DebRoy. “The innovations are a big equalizer of inequities because they make life better for everyone, including the poor and the underprivileged, along with helping to protect our environment.”