P.2).
Materialogists would perhaps give limited thought to the geophysically established fact that the secondary cryospheric zones of Earth – the Himalayas, Andes, Rockies, etc. – are products of high‐temperature phenomena active deep underneath Earth’s crust. Plate tectonics, very similar to sea ice dynamics, is briefly presented in Chapter 11. It is shown that the zone of reservoir‐induced earthquakes (or RTS), such as the Koyna–Warna area in India, may be predicted on the basis of the Elasto – Delayed-Elastic (EDE) aspect of the EDEV equation.
Figure P.2 “Trishul” (trident) of the two primary – North (N) and South (S) – polar regions, and the secondary regions represented by the Himalayas (H), with concentrations of snow and ice at extremely high homologous temperatures.
Source: Visionary sketch by N.K. Sinha.
History based on engineering physics looks to be the domain of professionals in metallurgy and materials science or materialogists. Where so much of the past, even the chronology, has to be teased from articulated intellectual objects emphasized in textbooks, scientific papers, and monographs, there surely must be need for a new perspective. However, much of the information required with state‐of‐art experimental observations was missing. The principal author, in particular, decided therefore to take a path that was a deviation from the normal.
Nirmal K. Sinha and Shoma Sinha
1 Importance of a Unified Model of High‐Temperature Material Behavior
CHAPTER MENU
1.1 The World’s Kitchens – The Innovation Centers for Materials Development 1.1.1 Defining High Temperature Based on Cracking Characteristics
1.2 Trinities of Earth’s Structure and Cryosphere 1.2.1 Trinity of Earth’s Structure 1.2.2 Trinity of Earth’s Cryospheric Regions
1.3 Earth’s Natural Materials (Rocks and Ice) 1.3.1 Ice: A High-Temperature Material 1.3.2 Ice: An Analog to Understand High-Temperature Properties of Solids
1.4 Rationalization of Temperature: Low and High
1.5 Deglaciation and Earth’s Response
1.6 High-Temperature Deformation: Time Dependency 1.6.1 Issues with Terminology: Elastic, Plastic, and Viscous Deformation 1.6.2 Elastic, Delayed Elastic, and Viscous Deformation
1.8 Paradigm Shifts 1.8.1 Paradigm Shift in Experimental Approach 1.8.2 Breaking Tradition for Creep Testing 1.8.3 Exemplification of the Novel Approach 1.8.4 Romanticism for a Constant-Structure Creep Test References
1.1 The World's Kitchens – The Innovation Centers for Materials Development
Engineering development is intricately linked with our understanding and manipulation of various kinds of materials, which are either readily available on land and sea or fabricated from them. Long before the dawn of civilization, Earth's surface had gone through many cycles of freezing and thawing. The ice age and deglacierization or melting of glaciers and ice sheets, still persisting on Earth's surface, played a pivoting role in shaping our lives and materials development. There is no question that ice played an important role in shaping the land and making adjustments in living conditions. But what does ice have to do with a book like this, entitled Engineering Physics of High‐Temperature Materials? In this book, we demonstrate how the knowledge of the physics of ice – a material that exists close to its melting point – can improve our understanding of all high‐temperature engineering materials. However, let us first explore a bit of human history and development in the usage of building materials.
The “Stone Age,” an archeological term of the three‐age system, was characterized by the use of stone as implements and ended variably between about 9000 and 2000 BCE in different areas of the world with the development of metalworking. It has been divided into the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic periods (Bates and Jackson 1980). The “Bronze Age,” characterized by metalworking and primarily the alloying of copper with tin and arsenic, took over between roughly 3000 and 1000 BCE with the “Iron Age” starting roughly between 1200 and 600 BCE.
The advent of the current cycle of global warming, which roughly began around 18 000 years ago (estimated peak period of the last glaciation), led humans as well as other species to move into areas previously covered with ice. A straightforward, easy‐to‐read introduction to various aspects of geology, which is useful to materials scientists and engineers who are not familiar with geological science, can be found in Physical Geology (Plummer and McGeary 1985). The process of deglaciation took a long time. The bulk of the ice sheets on Earth's surface melted away around 10 000 years ago. The global sea level was at its lowest level during the peak period of the last ice age, but it started to rise as the meltwater returned to the oceans. However, as ice melted, the ice load on the glaciated land, floating on Earth's molten mantle, decreased and the land areas started to rebound rapidly in the beginning and then slowed down. Most of the global land areas being used today, including those far away from the previously glaciated areas, became available about 6000 years ago, with one well‐documented exception of the loss of land – Australia's Great Barrier Reef (GBR). The 2400 km long GBR did not exist 15 000 years ago.
We may safely say that materials development accelerated from the middle of the current period of geologic time, which is known as the “Holocene Epoch” that started around 12 000 years ago. The Holocene (meaning wholly or entirely new) period began at the close of the Paleolithic Ice Age. Here, the “Age” (geochrone) is understood as the time interval during which a particular event occurred or a time characterized by unusual
