MEC 481

Due date: 20 June 2020

Project Assignments (20%)

Course Outcomes
 Ability to identify the relationships between properties and structure of engineering materials
and perform materials selection process (CO2)

Assignments Outcomes
By the end of this assignment, student should be able to;
i. Make an engineering-style recommendation concerning a material for a given application
ii. Write a meaningful report based on the findings from the study.

Description

Assignment 1 (20 marks)

The objective of this project is to make an engineering-style recommendation concerning a material

for a given application. This may take the form of a justification of a particular material
selected for a particular application, specification of a material or how to specify a given
material, or a description of the properties of a material that make it well suited to an
application. In all cases you will be best off to choose an application for your material in order to
have a clear context for its evaluation. Stone is a fine material but not very useful for aircraft
construction. Polymers are great but not for high temperatures.

You may choose one of the of materials’ applications listed below for your study.

Bio degradable materials for food packaging

Future materials for automotive construction
Materials for water filtration system
Materials for medical implants
Materials for porous operating devices
Materials for orthopedic medical devices
Materials for powder injection moulding components
Materials for aerospace micro-components
Materials for defence micro-components
Materials for wear components
Materials for weapons technology
Materials for telecommunications
Materials for high temperature applications
Materials for corrosive environments
Materials for sports applications
Materials for aircraft applications
Materials for cutting tools in traditional machining processes
Strong and light materials for buildings

You should ideally choose a material that you would recommend for a specific application and justify
the choice based on the requirements of the application and properties of the material. You should
consider alternative materials in the discussion and explain why the material you have chosen has
particularly valuable properties. You must make a specific recommendation in the paper concerning
the use of the material.

The report will be evaluated based on the content and creativity of the students. Use graphics or
figures where they would be helpful and be sure the report writing flows well and content is well
organized. The assignment consists of a report with a maximum length of 3 pages of text (inclusive of
figures and references) on the selected topic consisting of

 Executive summary (summarizing the most important aspects of the paper)

 Description of the application in question including what the materials requirements are,
 MEC 481
Due date: 20 June 2020
Project Assignments (20%)

 Description of the materials considered for this application, their properties, and a brief
description of what aspects of the materials are critical to determining the properties,
 Economics: costs, availability, impact on product related to the selection, possible
environmental consequences, etc….
 Material Recommended: which of the possible materials is recommended and why.

The report should be prepared using Arial Font, size 11pt and line spacing of 1.5 for the whole
document. It is also crucial to ensure that the plagiarism index of the report should be lower than 30%.