Chapter 1

EMS 223
INTRODUCTION TO ENGINEERING MATERIALS
 INTRODUCTION:
• Engineering Materials are materials used as
raw materials for any manufacturing process.
• Materials science and engineering (MSE) is an
interdisciplinary field of science and
engineering that studies and manipulates the
composition and structure of materials and
control materials properties through synthesis
and processing.
 INTRODUCTION
• Composition means the chemical make-up of
a material.
• Structure means a description of the
arrangement of atoms
• Synthesis refers to how materials are made
from naturally occurring or man-made
chemicals.
• Processing means how materials are shaped
into useful components to cause changes in
the properties of different materials
• The structure of materials has a profound
influence on many properties of materials,
even if the overall composition does not
change
• Microstructure is the structure of a material
at the microscopic scale.
CLASSIFICATION OF MATERIALS
 Classification of Materials
• There are different ways of classifying
materials. One way is to describe five groups:
1. Metals and alloys;
2. Ceramics, glasses, and glass-ceramics;
3. Polymers (plastics);
4. Semiconductors; and
5. Composite materials.
 Metals and Alloys
• Metals and alloys include steels, aluminum,
magnesium, zinc, cast iron, titanium, copper,
and nickel.
• An alloy is a metal that contains additions of
one or more metals or non-metals.
• In general, metals have good electrical and
thermal conductivity.
• Metals and alloys have relatively high
strength, high stiffness, ductility or formability,
• and shock resistance.
 Metals and Alloys
• They are particularly useful for structural or
load-bearing applications.
• Although pure metals are occasionally used,
alloys provide improvement in a particular
desirable property or permit better
combinations of properties
 Ceramics
• Ceramics can be defined as inorganic
crystalline materials. Beach sand and rocks are
examples of naturally occurring ceramics.
• Advanced ceramics are materials made by
refining naturally occurring ceramics and
other special process
• They are used in such consumer products as
paints, plastics, and tires, and for industrial
applications
 Ceramics
• Traditional ceramics are used to make bricks,
tableware, toilets, bathroom sinks,
• In general, due to the presence of porosity
(small holes), ceramics do not conduct heat
well
• Ceramics are strong and hard, but also very
brittle.
• New processing techniques make ceramics
sufficiently resistant to fracture that they can
be used in load-bearing applications,
 Glasses and Glass-Ceramics
• Glass is an amorphous material, often, but not
always, derived from a molten liquid.
• The term “amorphous” refers to materials that
do not have a regular, periodic arrangement of
atoms.
• Glasses are also used in houses, cars,
computer and television screens, and
hundreds of other applications.
• Glasses can be thermally treated (tempered)
to make them stronger.
 Glasses and Glass-Ceramics
• Forming glasses with small crystals of ceramics
by a special thermal process creates materials
that are known as glass-ceramics that are used
to make the mirror substrates for large
telescopes
• Processed by melting and casting.
 Polymers
• Polymers are typically organic materials.
• They are produced using a process known as
polymerization. Polymeric materials include
rubber (elastomers) and many types of
adhesives.
• Polymers typically are good electrical and
thermal insulators.
 Polymers
• Many polymers have very good resistance to
corrosive chemicals. Polymers have thousands
of applications e.g. compact disks (CDs),
ropes, liquid crystal displays (LCDs) to clothes
and coffee cups.
• Thermoplastic polymers, in which the long
molecular chains are not rigidly connected,
have good ductility and formability
• Thermosetting polymers are stronger but
more brittle because the molecular chains are
tightly
 Polymers
• Polymers are used in many applications,
particularly in molten form.
 Composite Materials
• The main idea in developing composites is to
blend the properties of different materials.
• These are formed from two or more materials,
producing properties not found in any single
material. Concrete, plywood, and fiberglass
are examples of composite materials.
• Fiberglass is made by dispersing glass fibers in
a polymer matrix.
• The glass fibers make the polymer stiffer,
without significantly increasing its density.
• With composites, we can produce lightweight,
strong, ductile, temperature-resistant
materials or we can produce hard, yet shock-
resistant, cutting tools that would otherwise
break easily.
 Polymers
• Advanced aircraft and aerospace vehicles rely
heavily on composites such as carbon fiber-
reinforced polymers
Functional Classification of materials
• Aerospace: Light materials such as Aluminum
alloys, plastics, silica for space shuttle tiles,
and many other materials belong to this
category.
• Biomedical: A number of artificial organs,
bone replacement parts, and other
components are made using differentplastics,
titanium alloys, and nonmagnetic stainless
steels
 Functional classification
• Electronic materials: semiconductors, such as
those made from silicon, are used to make
integrated circuits for computer chips.
• Energy Technology and Environmental
Technology: The nuclear industry uses
materials such as uranium dioxide and
plutonium as fuel.
• Numerous other materials, such as glasses
and stainless steels, are used in handling
nuclear materials and managing radioactive
waste
• Magnetic Materials: Computer hard disks
make use of many ceramic, metallic, and
polymeric materials. Computer hard disks are
made using alloys based on cobalt-platinum-
tantalum-chromium (Co-Pt-Ta-Cr) alloys.
• Photonic or Optical Materials Silica is used
widely for making optical fibers.
• Optical materials are used for making
semiconductor detectors and lasers used in
fiber optic communications systems and other
applications
• Smart Materials A smart material can sense
and respond to an external stimulus such as a
change in temperature, the application of a
stress, or a change in humidity or chemical
environment.
• Usually a smart material-based system
consists of sensors and actuators that read
changes and initiate an action.
• A good example of smart material is lead
zirconium titanate (PZT)
• Structural Materials These materials are
designed for carrying some type of stress.
• Steels, concrete, and composites are used to
make buildings and bridges.
• Steels, glasses, plastics, and composites also
are used widely to make automotives.
• Often in these applications, combinations of
strength, stiffness, and toughness are needed
under different conditions of temperature and
loading.
 Classification based on structure
• The term “structure” means the arrangement
of a material’s atoms;
• the structure at a microscopic scale is known
as “microstructure.”
• We can view these arrangements at different
scales, ranging from a few angstrom units to a
millimeter, this will be discussed later
Structure, Processing, & Properties
• Properties depend on structure
ex: hardness vs structure of steel

(d)
600
Hardness (BHN)

30m
500 (c)
400 (b)
(a)
4m
300
30m
200 30m

100
0.01 0.1 1 10 100 1000
Cooling Rate (C/s)
• Processing can change structure
ex: structure vs cooling rate of steel
 The Materials Selection Process
1. Pick Application Determine required Properties
Properties: mechanical, electrical, thermal,
magnetic, optical, deteriorative.

2. Properties Identify candidate Material(s)

Material: structure, composition.

3. Material Identify required Processing

Processing: changes structure and overall shape
ex: casting, sintering, vapor deposition, doping
forming, joining, annealing.
 ELECTRICAL
• Electrical Resistivity of Copper:

• Adding “impurity” atoms to Cu increases resistivity.

• Deforming Cu increases resistivity.
 THERMAL
• Space Shuttle Tiles:
--Silica fiber insulation
offers low heat conduction.
• Thermal Conductivity
of Copper:
--It decreases when
you add zinc!
 MAGNETIC
• Magnetic Storage: • Magnetic Permeability
--Recording medium vs. Composition:
is magnetized by --Adding 3 atomic % Si
recording head. makes Fe a better
recording medium!
 OPTICAL
• Transmittance:
--Aluminum oxide may be transparent, translucent, or
opaque depending on the material structure.

polycrystal: polycrystal:
single crystal low porosity high porosity
 DETERIORATIVE
• Stress & Saltwater... • Heat treatment: slows
--causes cracks! crack speed in salt water!

4m
--material:
7150-T651 Al "alloy"
(Zn,Cu,Mg,Zr)
Environmental and other effects of
materials
• These effects must be accounted for in design
to ensure that components do not harm or fail
unexpectedly
• Temperature: changes in temperature
dramatically alter the properties of materials
• Metals and alloys that have been
strengthened by certain heat treatments or
forming techniques may suddenly lose their
strength when heated.
• Corrosion: Most metals and polymers react
with oxygen or other gases, particularly at
elevated temperatures.
• Materials also are attacked by corrosive
liquids, leading to premature failure.
• The engineer faces the challenge of selecting
materials or coatings that prevent these
reactions and permit operation in extreme
environments
• Fatigue: In many applications, components
must be designed such that the load on the
material may not be enough to cause
permanent deformation.
• When we load and unload the material
thousands of times, even at low loads, small
cracks may begin to develop, and materials fail
as these cracks grow. This is known as fatigue
failure.
• In designing load-bearing components, the
possibility of fatigue must be accounted for.
• Strain: Some materials like silicon when we
pull it slowly- small rate of strain
• If you pull it fast - higher rate of strain.
• A similar behavior can occur with many
metallic materials.
• Thus, in many applications, the level and rate
of strain have to be considered
 Materials design and selection
• When a material is designed for a given
application, a number of factors must be
considered
• The material must acquire the desired physical
and mechanical properties, must be
• capable of being processed or manufactured
into the desired shape, and must provide an
economical solution to the design problem.
• Satisfying these requirements in a manner
that protects the environment—perhaps by
encouraging recycling of the materials—is
essential.
• In meeting these design requirements, the
engineer may have to make a number of
trade-offs in order have to be done in order to
produce a serviceable, yet marketable,
product.