"From metals and polymers to ceramics, natural materials, and composites, this book covers the environmental impacts on a broad range of materials used for the engineering of infrastructure, buildings, machines, and components all of which experience some form of degradation. The text discusses fundamental degradation processes and presents examples of degradation under various environmental conditions. It gives the fundamental principles for each class of material, followed by detailed characteristics of degradation for specific alloys of compositions, guidelines on how to protect against degradation, and a description of testing procedures"--provided by publisher