THE STRUCTURES

of METALS
Benny Purnawan
Sekolah Tinggi Teknologi Bandung
2017

For educational purpose only.

Source: Callister, William.D., Material Science and Engineering, An Introduction, 3rd edition, John Wiley & Sons,1994
 Why Study The Structure of Crystalline Solids?

• The properties of some materials are directly

related to their crystal structures.
Example: Magnesium & beryllium are more brittle than
gold & silver  they have different crystal structures.

• There are significant property differences

between crystalline & noncrystalline materials
having the same composition.
Example: noncrystalline ceramics are optically
transparent; the same materials in crystalline tend to
be opaque.
 Crystal Structures
• Solid materials may be classified according to
the regularity of the atoms arrangement.

• Crystalline material: the material in which the

atoms position themselves in a repetitive three-
dimensional pattern.
 All metals, many ceramics, certain polymers.
• Noncrystalline material: there is no long-range
atomic order.

• Crystal structure: the manner in which atoms

are spatially arranged.
• Unit Cell

• Crystal System

• Crystallographic Direction

• Crystallographic Plane

• Atomic Arrangements

• Single Crystal vs Polycrystalline

 Unit Cells
• Unit cell: the smallest unit of a crystal
structure.

• Based on the unit cells, three relatively simple

crystal structures for most of the common
metals are:
1. FCC: Face-Centered Cubic
2. BCC: Body-Centered Cubic
3. HCP: Hexagonal Close-Packed
 FCC
• Familiar metals having FCC structure: copper,
aluminum, silver, gold.

Hard-sphere model Reduced-sphere model

Aggregate of many atoms
 a&R
• The spheres touch one
another across a face
diagonal.
• The cube length = a
• The atomic radius = R

The relationship:
 Coordination Number
• Coordination number:
the number of nearest
neighbors (touching
atoms).

• Each atom has the

same coordination
number.

• Coordination number
of FCC = 12
 Atomic Packing Factor (APF)
• Atomic Packing Factor (APF): fraction of solid
sphere volume in a unit cell.

• APF of FCC = 0.74

 BCC
• Familiar metals having BCC structure:
chromium, iron, tungsten.

Hard-sphere model Reduced-sphere model

Aggregate of many atoms
 BCC
• The relationship between a & R:

• Coordination number = 8

• APF = 0.68
 HCP
• Familiar metals having HCP structure: cadmium,
magnesium, titanium, zinc.
• Coordination number = 12
• APF = 0.74

Reduced-sphere model Aggregate of many atoms

 HCP
• 3-D projection • 2-D projection

A sites

B sites

A sites
• Unit Cells

• Crystal System

• Crystallographic Direction

• Crystallographic Plane

• Atomic Arrangements

• Single Crystal vs Polycrystalline

 Crystal System
• Since there are many different
possible crystal structures, they
may be grouped based on the
unit cell geometry.
• The geometry may be fully
defined in terms of six
parameters: three edge lengths
and three interaxial angles.
• The previous examples:
FCC & BCC = Cubic system
HCP = Hexagonal system
Crystal Structures
Crystal Structures
• Unit Cells

• Crystal System

• Crystallographic Direction

• Crystallographic Plane

• Atomic Arrangements

• Single Crystal vs Polycrystalline

Crystallographic Direction
Example
 Example
• Draw [111], [110], [100], 110 within a cubic unit cell.
• Unit Cells

• Crystal System

• Crystallographic Direction

• Crystallographic Plane

• Atomic Arrangements

• Single Crystal vs Polycrystalline

Crystallographic Planes
(Miller Indices)
Example
Example
• Unit Cells

• Crystal System

• Crystallographic Direction

• Crystallographic Plane

• Atomic Arrangements

• Single Crystal vs Polycrystalline

 Atomic Arrangements
• The atomic arrangement on:
(110) plane for FCC

(110) plane for BCC

 A Family of Planes
• A family of planes contains all planes that are
crystallographically equivalent (having the same
atomic packing).
• For example, in cubic crystals:
 Linear Density
• Linear density*: the number of atoms per unit
length whose centers lie on the direction vector
for a specific crystallographic direction.

*this is the definition taken from the 7th ed. book

 Example
• Calculate the linear density of the [110] direction
 Planar Density
• Planar density*: the number of atoms per unit
area that are centered on a particular
crystallographic plane.

*this is the definition taken from the 7th ed. book

Planar Density
• Unit Cells

• Crystal System

• Crystallographic Direction

• Crystallographic Plane

• Atomic Arrangements

• Single Crystal vs Polycrystalline

 Single Crystal vs Polycrystalline
• Single Crystals
A crystalline solid for
which the periodic &
repeated atomic pattern
extend throughout its
entirety without
interruption.

• Polycrystalline
Materials
Crystalline materials
composed of many
small crystals or
grains.
Thank You for Listening

• end of presentation