04/20/2007 -
Thermodynamics and Phase Transformations, The Selected Works of Mats Hillert (2006)
by J. Agren, Y. Brechet, Ch. Hutchinson, J. Philibert, G. Purdy
ISBN 2-86883-889-8. EDPSciences, 17, av. du Hoggar, P.A. de Courtaboeuf, BP 112 – 91944 Les Ulis Cedex A, France. 2006. Hardcover. 508 pages. $60.
Thermodynamics and phase transformations are basic concepts, well described in any textbook of metallurgy. The present state of our knowledge, and its digital applications, especially thanks to several software programs now largely used in laboratories, find their source in some seminal papers published during the last five or six decades, for a large part by Mats Hillert. As they are scattered in many journals, and as some of them—in spite they constitute inescapable milestones—cannot be easily reached, a few scientists decided to publish a selection of Mats Hillert’s papers, which should represent a judicious sampling of his extensive body of work.
This choice of twenty papers gives a good opportunity to appreciate Hillert’s style, with its systematic use of free energy diagrams, its preference for simple approximate solutions of diffusion problems, as well as its use of metallography to support statements on mechanisms and, back to the 1960s, its precursory use of numerical solutions when analytical ones are no longer available. As an example, I would mention an internal report dating from 1960, which was never published in an “official” journal, but has nevertheless been very influential, so that many people tried to get a copy they forwarded to each other! Quite remarkably, in this paper two figures illustrate the kinetics of austenite to ferrite transformation, exhibiting a “catastrophe,” i.e. a transition where a continuous variation of the initial supersaturation leads to a discontinuous and even singular variation of the growth rate, illustrating the large spectrum of morphologies from Widmanstätten ferrite to martensite. Such papers have been not only very influential in the past, but they can still now give new impetus to many ideas their author had put forward.
All selected articles are introduced by an active author, in order to present the paper and underline its interest and character of novelty. They are reproduced in their original format. young people could be surprised at the rather poor appearance according to present standard of some early papers, specially internal reports of the Swedish Institute for metal research, with their hand written corrections!
Everybody working in the field of metals microstructure and thermal treatments, research scientists and engineers, teachers and students, will learn quite a lot in discovering—or re-discovering—these papers. This selection will prove particularly useful to students of Materials Science and Engineering at all levels, as the direct contact with the original literature is (should be?) compulsory. This book will make it quite easy and their study will certainly inspire further studies and developments.
The quality of the reproduction is quite remarkable. A few photographs of Mats Hillert at different stages of his life give a personal touch at the science scene.
For more on Thermodynamics and Phase Transformations, The Selected works of Mats Hillert, visit the EDP Sciences web site.
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