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Sporty materials uncovered
BOOKS & MEDIA UPDATE Why Things Break Mark E. Eberhart Harmony Books (2003), 272 pp. ISBN: 1-4000-4760-9 $24
In providing an exploration of how and why materials fail, Eberhart covers cracks, clefts, fissures, and faults for the general reader. He makes use of a number of personal anecdotes and familiar examples to explain this field of materials science, including the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and the tendency of hard disk drives to crash. The book covers what leads materials to break apart and what can be done to prevent it, as well as why this understanding is crucial to safety, reliability, and cost.
Optics, Light and Lasers Dieter Meschede John Wiley & Sons (2004), 419 pp. ISBN: 3-527-40364-7 $75 / £50 / 75
Written for newcomers to the field, this textbook begins with classical optics concepts. It introduces electromagnetic radiation, explains light propagation in matter, and covers coherence and interferometry. The final chapters describe laser properties and dynamics. Gas, solid-state, and semiconductor lasers are all discussed.
High-k Gate Dielectrics M. Houssa (ed.) Institute of Physics (2003), 616 pp. ISBN: 0750309067 $120 / £75
Houssa has brought together a book that reviews current research in high dielectric constant materials. It covers deposition techniques for gate dielectric layers and characterization methods for determining their properties. Theoretical work in the field is outlined and the final section covers technological aspects of integrating these materials into devices.
Expert Graduate Undergraduate
Sporty materials uncovered Materials in Sports Equipment is a welcome addition to books on materials engineering, says Kevin Edwards. It fills a gap in coverage of the important sports market, where advances in materials can lead to improved performance. There are many materials books on the market. There are a smaller number of books on materials engineering. There are even fewer that are totally materials application-oriented. Within most materials engineering books, however, there are some chapters on applications. But there tends to be very little written about sports applications, and that tends to be from very disparate sources. It is exciting, therefore, to see a book dedicated to the important market sector of sports goods. Materials in Sports Equipment is a collection of contributions describing the materials used in sports equipment design and development. Leading experts in the field demonstrate the enormous increase in sports performance that is attributable to developments in materials. Furthermore, Mike Jenkins asserts in his preface that consumers are prepared to pay premium prices for sports equipment just because of the benefits of advances in materials technology. This book provides an excellent review of the subject that, because of its balance of practical and theoretical content, is accessible to a wide readership. The book begins with a rather brief introduction to materials in sports, before being divided into two major parts. The first describes the general uses of materials, including foam protection, sports surfaces, running shoes, and balls and ballistics. The second part covers specific sports applications, such as cricket, cycling, golf, mountaineering, skiing, tennis, and paralympic sports. The book’s breadth of coverage is to be commended. Unfortunately, the editor has not provided a general conclusion or visions for the future at the end of the book. This would have given readers a useful insight into where the technology of sports equipment is likely to go in the next decade. Picking on a few chapters for comment, the section devoted to the rapidly expanding area of paralympic sports describes how very specialist requirements are realized through materials technology. The chapter on balls and ballistics, the latter being things that are thrown other than balls, describes applications that are
often taken for granted and pulls in a broader range of sports, some not covered elsewhere in the book. Curiously, a generic chapter on surface engineering is included in the second part of the book, which may have been better placed in the first. Each chapter provides a summary or describes an aspect of a materials application, but could have easily been expanded to fill a book in itself. For this reason, the provision of references, including websites, allows readers to find further information if desired. The authors are mostly academics from UK universities, with the University of Birmingham featuring often, as you might expect with the editor also being an academic there. There are also contributions from consultants and researchers in the US and Australia. Considering the broad range of applications, there is a reasonably consistent structure to the chapters. This is particularly useful for readers selecting the chapter appropriate to their sporting interest. However, the link between related topics in different parts of the book is sometimes tentative, with only the list of contents and index to help locate supplementary information. The book is well illustrated with a good selection of line diagrams, Mike Jenkins (ed.) Materials in Sports Equipment (2003) Woodhead Publishing, 424 pp., ISBN: 1-85573-599-7 $210/ £135 / 210
graphs, and photographs. It is an invaluable single source of information on the development of sports equipment from a materials perspective. Its style of presentation and technical content is conducive to both academic research and practitioners in the fields of materials engineering and design. The book is highly recommended, not only for those already working in the field and who want to advance their knowledge, but also for those who are just curious to know more about what goes into sports equipment design. Kevin Edwards is professor of engineering design at the University of Derby, UK
March 2004
53
In providing an exploration of how and why materials fail, Eberhart covers cracks, clefts, fissures, and faults for the general reader. He makes use of a number of personal anecdotes and familiar examples to explain this field of materials science, including the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger and the tendency of hard disk drives to crash. The book covers what leads materials to break apart and what can be done to prevent it, as well as why this understanding is crucial to safety, reliability, and cost.
Optics, Light and Lasers Dieter Meschede John Wiley & Sons (2004), 419 pp. ISBN: 3-527-40364-7 $75 / £50 / 75
Written for newcomers to the field, this textbook begins with classical optics concepts. It introduces electromagnetic radiation, explains light propagation in matter, and covers coherence and interferometry. The final chapters describe laser properties and dynamics. Gas, solid-state, and semiconductor lasers are all discussed.
High-k Gate Dielectrics M. Houssa (ed.) Institute of Physics (2003), 616 pp. ISBN: 0750309067 $120 / £75
Houssa has brought together a book that reviews current research in high dielectric constant materials. It covers deposition techniques for gate dielectric layers and characterization methods for determining their properties. Theoretical work in the field is outlined and the final section covers technological aspects of integrating these materials into devices.
Expert Graduate Undergraduate
Sporty materials uncovered Materials in Sports Equipment is a welcome addition to books on materials engineering, says Kevin Edwards. It fills a gap in coverage of the important sports market, where advances in materials can lead to improved performance. There are many materials books on the market. There are a smaller number of books on materials engineering. There are even fewer that are totally materials application-oriented. Within most materials engineering books, however, there are some chapters on applications. But there tends to be very little written about sports applications, and that tends to be from very disparate sources. It is exciting, therefore, to see a book dedicated to the important market sector of sports goods. Materials in Sports Equipment is a collection of contributions describing the materials used in sports equipment design and development. Leading experts in the field demonstrate the enormous increase in sports performance that is attributable to developments in materials. Furthermore, Mike Jenkins asserts in his preface that consumers are prepared to pay premium prices for sports equipment just because of the benefits of advances in materials technology. This book provides an excellent review of the subject that, because of its balance of practical and theoretical content, is accessible to a wide readership. The book begins with a rather brief introduction to materials in sports, before being divided into two major parts. The first describes the general uses of materials, including foam protection, sports surfaces, running shoes, and balls and ballistics. The second part covers specific sports applications, such as cricket, cycling, golf, mountaineering, skiing, tennis, and paralympic sports. The book’s breadth of coverage is to be commended. Unfortunately, the editor has not provided a general conclusion or visions for the future at the end of the book. This would have given readers a useful insight into where the technology of sports equipment is likely to go in the next decade. Picking on a few chapters for comment, the section devoted to the rapidly expanding area of paralympic sports describes how very specialist requirements are realized through materials technology. The chapter on balls and ballistics, the latter being things that are thrown other than balls, describes applications that are
often taken for granted and pulls in a broader range of sports, some not covered elsewhere in the book. Curiously, a generic chapter on surface engineering is included in the second part of the book, which may have been better placed in the first. Each chapter provides a summary or describes an aspect of a materials application, but could have easily been expanded to fill a book in itself. For this reason, the provision of references, including websites, allows readers to find further information if desired. The authors are mostly academics from UK universities, with the University of Birmingham featuring often, as you might expect with the editor also being an academic there. There are also contributions from consultants and researchers in the US and Australia. Considering the broad range of applications, there is a reasonably consistent structure to the chapters. This is particularly useful for readers selecting the chapter appropriate to their sporting interest. However, the link between related topics in different parts of the book is sometimes tentative, with only the list of contents and index to help locate supplementary information. The book is well illustrated with a good selection of line diagrams, Mike Jenkins (ed.) Materials in Sports Equipment (2003) Woodhead Publishing, 424 pp., ISBN: 1-85573-599-7 $210/ £135 / 210
graphs, and photographs. It is an invaluable single source of information on the development of sports equipment from a materials perspective. Its style of presentation and technical content is conducive to both academic research and practitioners in the fields of materials engineering and design. The book is highly recommended, not only for those already working in the field and who want to advance their knowledge, but also for those who are just curious to know more about what goes into sports equipment design. Kevin Edwards is professor of engineering design at the University of Derby, UK
March 2004
53