Material technology has become so diversified in theories and the construction of novel microstructures that the researchers and practitioners are drifting further apart. This book is based on material presented at an International Symposium in Xanthi, Greece in July 1989. The symposium attracted a group of individual engineers and scientists from the East and West who tackled the question of why particular manipulations of a given material have particular effects. Emphasis is laid on the strain energy function because of the versatile role it plays in mechanics and physics. It has...