Microstructure and Phase Transition

Contains articles based on the research and experiments concerning Microstructure and Phase Transition collected by the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications. This book provides a selection of progress in some of the powerful methods introduced to study questions on the behavior of crystalline solids, as well as the experimental results.

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This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications MICROSTRUCTURE AND PHASE TRANSITION is based on the proceedings of a workshop which was an integral part of the 1990-91 IMA program on "Phase Transitions and Free Boundaries." We thank R. Fosdick, M.E. Gurtin, W.-M. Ni and L.A. Peletier for organizing the year-long program and, especially, D. Kinderlehrer, R. James, M. Luskin and J. Ericksen for organizing the meeting and editing these proceedings. We also take this opportunity to thank those agencies whose financial support made the workshop possible: the Army Research Office, and the National Science Foun- dation. A vner Friedman Willard Miller. Jr. PREFACE Much of our traditional knowledge of materials and processes is achievf'd by observa- tion and analysis of small departures from equilibrium. Many materials, especially modern alloys, ceramics, and their composites, experience not only larger but more dramatic changes, such as the occurrence of phase transitions and t.he creation of defect structures, when viewed at the microscopic scale. How is this observed, how can it be interpreted, and how does it influence macroscopic behavior?
These are the principle concerns of this volume, which constitutes the proceedings of an IMA workshop dedicated to these issues.