This text is an introduction to crystal mechanics and includes theories of polycrystalline and continuum plasticity for textured materials. It presents a simple and concise review of the mechanics of crystals and polycrystals and gives applications for solving problems related to the plastic deformation of metals. Along with the basic concepts, essential for the student or nonspecialist, most of the author's pioneering work is emphasized and is presented for the first time in book form. Focusing on plasticity, the text includes a chapter on elasticity, which introduces the reader to transformations of stress and strain from one set of axes to another. The effects of antisotropic thermal expansion on polycrystals are also discussed. The concepts of crystal plasticity are extended to predict the behaviour of textured polycrystals and the predicted behaviour is related to continuum theories of yielding. Hosford demonstrates that in order to solve engineering problems, it is possible to bypass continuum mechanics completely and use crystallographic analyses directly. With our rapidly growing computing power, such an approach to engineering problems may become routine in a few decades. To make the book useful to a readership with diverse backgrounds, example problems have been included in the first few chapters and Appendix I to illustrate points and show approaches to solving problems. Some readers may have strong backgrounds in mechanics but be new to the field of crystals or vice versa. For this reason, a number of appendices have been included to cover fundamentals of geometry, crystallography, and mechanics. This book can be used as a textbook for part of a general course on the mechanical behaviour of metals.
