Historically, a major problem for the study of the large deformation of crystalline solids has been the apparent lack of unity in experimentally determined stress-strain functions. The writer's discovery in 1949 of the unexpectedly high velocity of incremental loading waves in pre-stressed large deformation fields emphasized to him the pressing need for the independent, systematic experimental study of the subject, to provide a firm foundation upon which physically plausible theories for the finite deformation of crystalline solids could be constructed. Such a study undertaken by the writer at that time and continued uninterruptedly to the present, led in 1956 to the development of the diffraction grating experiment which permitted, for the first time, the optically accurate determination of the strain-time detail of non-linear finite amplitude wave fronts propagating into crystalline solids whose prior history was precisely known.
These experimental diffraction grating studies during the past decade have led to the discovery that the uniaxial stress-strain functions of 27 crystalline solids are unified in a single, generalized stress-strain function which is described, much of it hitherto unpublished, in the present monograph. The detailed study of over 2,000 polycrystal and single crystal uni- axial stress experiments in 27 crystalline solids, in terms of the variation of a large number of pertinent parameters, has provided new unified pat- terns of understanding which, it is hoped, will be of interest and value to theorists and experimentalists alike.