The physical properties of materials relay phenomena occurring at different space and time scales, ranging from nanometers to centimeters and from femtoseconds to seconds. This immediately illustrates the fundamental difficulty of establishing a connection between material behaviour at the microscopic level, where it needs to be understood, and macroscopic properties that need to be predicted. This book is a comprehensive assessment of the various theoretical and numerical methods currently in use to investigate microstructural transformations and mechanical properties of inhomogeneous systems, from the atomic scale to the macroscopic: kinetic mean-field theories, Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics simulations, Ginzburg-Landau and phase field methods as applied to plasticity and microstructure transformation, discrete and stochastic dislocation dynamics, and cluster dynamics.
Extensive surveys of major physical processes include: solidification; microstructural evolution in single and polycrystalline systems under internal and applied stress; high temperature plasticity; recrystallization; large plastic strain in multiphase systems; fatigue; fracture; diffusive transformations; and fine grained materials.