Introduction

Application of thermodynamics and kinetics to phenomena of interest in materials science is the theme of this book. Most materials in the phrase materials science consist of phases or mixtures of phases. By phase is meant the homogeneous configuration of atoms or molecules corresponding to a liquid; or to some crystalline solid, such as a solid having the body-centered-cubic (bcc) structure; or to an amorphous solid, such as glass; or to a vapor. A phase has a set of properties including thermodynamic potentials, such as entropy, enthalpy and Gibbs free energy. The phase may or may not be in an equilibrium state. In the equilibrium state the thermodynamic properties of a given phase are not functions of its past history, but are unique. A state of equilibrium is defined for a closed system by the condition that the entropy is at a maximum. Related to this condition it is also defined by the existence of a minimum in one of the thermodynamic potentials listed in Table 1.1 along with the corresponding variables that are constrained to be constant in the minimization procedure.

At equilibrium, there are a variety of variational properties of the thermodynamic potentials. For example, the bulk modulus is given by ?V[