Introductory Chapter: Protection of Materials

Abstract

The science and technology of materials have as objective provided access to specific knowledgein this field and besides generated matters of interest for the development of originalresearches leading to new materials and, as a consequence, to proper protection methods toachieve high economic impact.Since iron and steels constitute a group of widely used materials in civil and industrialconstruction, this chapter describes firstly the fundamental concepts of metal corrosion andthe most frequent failures originating on service. Besides, in this chapter, it was considered ofinterest to include aspects inherent to the physicochemistry of fire and its mechanism ofspreading because of the significant human and material losses produced year after year byaction of the fire.It is appropriate to mention that the different chapters of this book describe innovativemethods of surface treatment to control the kinetics of metallic corrosion and the action of fireon several materials.