Electromagnetism of Continuous Media

Book excerpt: The wide application of technologies in new mechanical, electronic and biomedical systems calls for materials and structures with non-conventional properties (e.g materials with 'memory'). Of equal importance is the understanding of the physical behaviour of these materials and consequently developing mathematical modelling techniques for prediction. This self contained text discusses the mathematical modelling used with these types of electromagnetic materials. It provides a carefully structured, coherent, and comprehensive treatment of electromagnetism of continuous media. The authors provide a systematic review of known subjects along with original results about thermodynamics of electromagnetic materials, well-posedness of initial boundary-value problems, variational settings, and wave propagation. Models of non-linear materials, non-local materials (superconductors), and hysteretic (magnetic) materials are also developed in detail.