Characterization of Metals and Alloys

This book covers various aspects of characterization of materials in the areas of metals, alloys, steels, welding, nanomaterials, intermetallic, and surface coatings. These materials are obtained by different methods and techniques like spray, mechanical milling, sol-gel, casting, biosynthesis, and chemical reduction among others. Some of these materials are classified according to application such as materials for medical application, materials for industrial applications, materials used in the oil industry and materials used like coatings. The authors provide a comprehensive overview of structural characterization techniques including scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Raman spectroscopy, image analysis, finite element method (FEM), optical microscopy (OM), energy dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), differential thermal analysis (DTA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), ultraviolet–visible spectroscopy (UV-Vis), infrared photo-thermal radiometry (IPTR), electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS), thermogravimetry analysis (TGA), thermo luminescence (TL), photoluminescence (PL), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (HRTEM), and radio frequency (RF). The book includes theoretical models and illustrations of characterization properties—both structural and chemical.

Dr. Ramiro Perez Campos studied his bachelor and master degree in Physics at the National Polytechnic Institute in Mexico. He obtained his Ph. D. in Physics at the University of Alberta, Canada in 1983. He also carried out postdoctoral work at the KFA in Julich, Germany. He was awarded an Alexander Von Humboldt postdoctoral scholarship. He is the author of more than 170 scientific papers, all of them related with the applications of the transmission electron microscope in materials science. Dr. Ramiro Perez Campos has cultivated lines of research related with theoretical simulations of images obtained by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Theoretical simulations have been based on electron diffraction using the theory of Bethe, and the multilayer model. Currently, he is Director of Centro de Fisica Aplicada y Tecnologia Avanzada (CFATA) from Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM).

Dr. Antonio Contreras Cuevas studied his bachelor degree in Mechanical Engineering from 1989 to 1994. He studied a master degree in Metallurgy and Materials Science at Universidad Michoacana from 1995 to 1997. He obtained a PhD in 2002 in Metallurgy and Materials Science from Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM). Currently is a pipeline materials researcher for Mexican Petroleum Institute since 2003. He is a member of NACE and Mexican Materials Society, and he belongs to National Research System. The main research areas include stress corrosion cracking (SCC), root cause analysis (RCA), materials characterization, synthesis and characterization of composite materials, and pipeline integrity. He is author from more than 60 scientific papers related with materials characterization by different techniques.

Dr. Rodrigo A. Esparza Munoz obtained his Ph.D. in Metallurgy and Materials Science at the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo (UMSNH), Mexico in 2007. He carried out two postdoctoral stays, one of them in the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) and the other one, in the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). He is the author of more than 50 scientific papers, most of them related with the characterization of nanomaterials using high-resolution transmission electron microscopy and aberration-corrected scanning transmission electron microscopy. Actually, he is researcher of Centro de Fisica Aplicada y Tecnologia Avanzada (CFATA) from Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM).