Corrosion in its most general perspective deals with the decay of materials. Often, somewhat arbitrarily, we presume that corrosion occurs only in metals and mostly in acid solutions. One realizes upon reflection that this purview is too narrow, but we may balk at thinking of the corrosion of cloth, timber, or leather—all of which are used, as are metals, in the service of man. In general, we use rather arbitrary definitions of what constitutes an engineering material according to the origin of our professional degree, the technical society that holds our allegiance or the organization that pays our salary.
In general, any material which serves the needs of man deserves to be subsumed in the generality of materials. The needs of man—housing, food, clothing, communication, transportation, energy, recreation, personal development—are satisfied in an operational sense by materials in one way or other. While materials are selected to meet those needs...
