Materials & Processing

LECTURES 1-3 RECAP

Dr Ben Thomas
Design Framework
Level C
2016/17

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 KEY POINTS

• Materials are described by properties

• Each material property tells us one aspect of
the material behaves
• Material Properties can be grouped according
to the forces they relate to, e.g.
• Electrical – electricity
• Mechanical – force/stress
• Thermal - heat

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 KEY POINTS

• Materials are grouped into families based on

their composition and their material properties
• Materials Families
• Polymers (plastics)
• Ceramics
• Metals
• Composites

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 KEY POINTS

• Materials can be looked at at different scales

(levels of ‘zoom’)
• There are different features at each scale that
affect the material properties
• It is important to understand how the structure
of the material at each scale affects the overall
material properties

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 KEY POINTS

• Materials Scales (large – small)

• Macro scale (cm+) – large, whole component size
• Micro scale (mm) – the arrangement of crystals in the
material, size/shape of crystals
• Nano scale (nm) – the arrangement of atom to form
different shapes of crystals
• Atomic scale (Å) – the type, and strength of bonds
holding the atoms together

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 KEY POINTS

• Units (large – small)

• Macro scale – millimetres (mm), 1/1000th of a metre

• Micro scale – micrometres (μm), 1/1000,000th of a metre

• Nano scale – nanometers (nm), 1/1000,000,000th of a metre

• Atomic scale – Ångström (Å), 1/10th of a nanometre – 1 Å is the

approximate size of an atom

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 KEY POINTS

• Macro scale – size and shape of components

themselves, e.g.

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 KEY POINTS
• Macro scale – size and shape of components themselves, e.g.
• At this scale effects like triangulation, stress concentrations at corners etc.
can affect the performance of the component itself

3D printing used to make a component Sharp corners can produce stress

lighter by removing areas of low stress concentrations and make the component
concentration weaker
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 KEY POINTS

• Micro scale (mm) – the arrangement of crystals

in the material, size/shape of crystals, e.g.

Heating/cooling can cause different types of crystals to form in steel – the

proportion of each crystal type influences the material properties

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 KEY POINTS
• Micro scale (mm) – the arrangement of crystals
in the material, size/shape of crystals, e.g.

Case hardening is a process whereby the surface of a component is made harder by changing the crystal
structure at the surface while the rest of the materials remains soft
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 KEY POINTS
• Micro scale (mm) – the arrangement of crystals
in the material, size/shape of crystals, e.g.

The larger crystals in the centre of tis image will give different material properties to the
small crystals at the sides
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 KEY POINTS

• Nano scale (nm) – the arrangement of atom to

form different shapes of crystals

Quartz crystal – large scale crystal (L) and atomic arrangement (R)

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 KEY POINTS

• Nano scale (nm) – the arrangement of atom to

form different shapes of crystals

Various common atomic arrangements – you need to be familiar with these terms and shapes

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 KEY POINTS

• Nano scale (nm) – the arrangement of atom to

form different shapes of crystals

Body Centred Cubic (BCC) arrangement

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 KEY POINTS

• Nano scale (nm) – the arrangement of atom to

form different shapes of crystals

Face Centred Cubic (FCC) arrangement

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 KEY POINTS

• Nano scale (nm) – the arrangement of atom to

form different shapes of crystals

Crystal structure of diamond

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 KEY POINTS

• Atomic scale (Å) – the type, and strength of

bonds holding the atoms together, e.g.
• Ionic bond – exchange of electron(s)
• Covalent bond – share of electron(s)
• Metallic bond – sea of electron(s)
• Secondary bond – weak bonds between molecules*

* Molecules are atoms bonded together to form compounds, e.g. Water (H2O) is
formed from molecules of Hydrogen and Oxygen
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 KEY POINTS

• Atomic scale (Å) – the type, and strength of

bonds holding the atoms together
• Engineering/Design Engineering: Need an outline
understanding of how each type of bond works (see
lecture slides #2)

• Product Design/Industrial Design: Need to know the

table on the next slide

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 SUMMARY: BONDING
Type Bond Energy Comments
Ionic Large! Nondirectional (ceramics)

Variable Directional
Covalent large-Diamond semiconductors, ceramics
small-Bismuth polymer chains)

Variable
Metallic large-Tungsten Nondirectional (metals)
small-Mercury
Directional
Secondary smallest inter-chain (polymer)
inter-molecular
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 Lecture 3

Thank you…

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