Introduction to Material Science and Engineering

Lecture 1-2 | Introduction to materials

Textbook
Materials Science and Engineering, William D. Callister, Jr. Wiley India (P) Ltd.

Further reading
 Introduction to Physical Metallurgy, Sidney H. Avner, Tata McGraw-Hill.
 Materials Science and Engineering: A First Course, V. Raghavan, Prentice Hall of India
 Materials Engineering, Science, Processing and Design, Butterworth-Heinemann, Michael Ashby, Hugh
Shercliff and David Cebon, Butterworth-Heinemann
ASM Standards
Volume 1: Properties and Selection: Irons, Steels, and High-Performance Alloys
Volume 2: Properties and Selection: Nonferrous Alloys and Special-Purpose Materials
Volume 3: Alloy Phase Diagrams
Volume 4: Heat Treating
Volume 4A: Steel Heat Treating Fundamentals and Processes
Volume 4B: Heat Treating Technologies
Volume 4C: Induction Heating and Heat Treating
Volume 4D: Heat Treating Irons & Steels
Volume 5: Surface Engineering
Volume 5A: Thermal Spray Technology
Volume 5B: Protective Organic Coatings
Volume 6: Welding, Brazing and Soldering
Volume 6A: Welding Fundamentals and Processes
Volume 7: Powder Metallurgy American Society for Metals
Volume 8: Mechanical Testing and Evaluation
Volume 9: Metallography and Microstructures
Volume 10: Materials Characterization
Volume 11: Failure Analysis and Prevention
Volume 12: Fractography
Volume 13A: Corrosion: Fundamentals, Testing, and Protection
Volume 13B: Corrosion: Materials
Volume 13C: Corrosion: Environments and Industries
continued
ASM Standards
Volume 14A: Metalworking: Bulk Forming
Volume 14B: Metalworking: Sheet Forming
Volume 15: Casting
Volume 16: Machining
Volume 17: Nondestructive Evaluation and Quality Control
Volume 18: Friction, Lubrication, and Wear Technology
Volume 19: Fatigue and Fracture
Volume 20: Materials Selection and Design
Volume 21: Composites
Volume 22A: Fundamentals of Modeling for Metals Processing
Volume 22B: Metals Process Simulation
Volume 23: Materials for Medical Devices

There are 34 volumes of ASM Handbook. ASM Handbook

ASTM Standards
• ASTM International is a globally recognized leader in the development and delivery of
international voluntary consensus standards.
• 12,000 ASTM standards are used around the world to improve product quality, enhance safety,
facilitate market access and trade, and build consumer confidence.

Examples
• ASTM E 8M: Standard Test Methods for Tension Testing of Metallic Materials
• ASTM F 1953-10: Standard Guide for Construction and Maintenance of Grass Tennis Courts

American Society for Testing and Materials

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Materials around us
Every segment of our everyday lives is influenced to one degree or another by materials.

What is the composition? What are the desired properties? How are these processed?
Materials Tetrahedron

• Atomic structure
• Microstructure
Characterization • Macrostructure
• Tools to observe the structure
• Tools to determine properties

• Mechanical properties
• Electrical properties
• Thermal properties
• Casting • Magnetic properties
• Powder metallurgy • Optical properties
• Rolling, forging, extrusion etc.
• Heat treatment It implies performance of the
• Welding component in service.

Structure-Property-processing-performance comprises the Materials Tetrahedron.

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Materials science vs Materials Engineering

Materials Science
It emphasises on understanding the underlying relationships between Structure-Property-
processing-performance of materials.

Materials Engineering
It focuses on how to translate or transform materials into a useful device or components for
various applications.
Classification of materials Metals | Polymers | Ceramics | Composites

Properties of Metals
o ductile and malleable
o relatively high melting points
o varying degrees of hardness
o good conductor of electricity and heat

Properties of Ceramics
o extremely hard, brittle and wear resistant
o very high melting points
o poor conductor of electricity and heat
o chemically stable
o low coefficient of thermal expansion
o prone to thermal shock

Properties of Polymers
o extremely soft and ductile
o extremely light
o very high formability
o poor strength
o poor conductor of electricity and heat
o decomposes at modest temperatures
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Material properties
Material properties
Material properties
Material properties
Structure-property correlation: Opacity

single crystal polycrystal: low porosity polycrystal: high porosity

Example 1
Aluminum oxide may be
transparent, translucent, or
opaque depending on its
microstructure.
Structure-property correlation: Electrical Resistivity

Example 2
• Electrical Resistivity of Copper
increases with alloying addition,
i.e. Ni
• Deforming Cu increases
resistivity.
Structure-property correlation: Hardness

Example 3
Higher cooling rate results in
increase in hardness of steel
of the same composition.

Courtesy: Dr. A. Roy

Structure-property correlation: Other examples
• Soft, stretchy rubber becomes hard when vulcanized in presence of sulphur.
• Heating a metal at high temperature makes it soft, ductile and malleable
• Rolling a metal repeatedly makes it hard and brittle
• Ceramics can be made tougher by addition of certain compounds
• Pure gold is alloyed to make it hard and workable

All of the above phenomena involve change in microstructure and consequently its properties.

Pure elemental gold is 24 karat (99.99%

pure), while 18 karat gold is 75 % pure gold.
The remaining portion of the metal could be
silver, platinum, copper, palladium, zinc,
nickel, iron, and cadmium.
Design Limiting Properties

Design limiting properties are those that define the

suitability of a material based on design requirements.

Design limiting properties for an airplane:

 Density
 Strength
 Stiffness
 Toughness

All of the above properties need to be satisfied

for successful design of the plane.
Selection of materials
Ashby Diagrams or Bubble Charts are used for Selection of Materials.

Prof. Michael F Ashby

Cambridge University, UK

www.grantadesign.com

How to select a material for an application?

1. Pick Application 
2. Determine required Properties 
3. Identify candidate Material(s) 
4. Identify required Processing

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Example: material selection for hammer head
1. Pick Application 
2. Determine required Properties  toughness, strength and hardness
3. Identify candidate Material(s)  iron based alloys
4. Identify required Processing forging and heat treating
 MATERIAL SELECTION is not about just choosing a material,
but choosing a profile of properties that best meets the needs of the design.

Three important criteria in material selection are -

I. in-service conditions to which the material will be subjected
II. any deterioration of material properties during operation
III. economics or cost of the fabricated component
Introduction to Material Science and Engineering

Lecture 3-4 | Metallography and microstructures

 Metallography or Materialography
Metallography is the science of sample preparation to study the microstructure of materials.
The basic steps for proper metallographic specimen preparation include:

 Sampling and Sectioning

 Mounting
 Grinding
 Polishing
 Etching
 Cleaning and storage

Ceramic and polymeric materials may also be prepared using

metallographic techniques, hence the terms ceramography,
plastography and, collectively, materialography.
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Steps in metallography
1. Sampling and sectioning
Choosing the region of interest and cutting using hacksaw, abrasive cutters etc.
Abrasive cutters (dry and wet)
Abrasive discs

Dry cutting is used when heat generated due to cutting does not influence the microstructure,
else wet cutting is preferred. The cutting blades are generally made of Silicon Carbide (SiC).
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2. Mounting
It is done when the sample size is too small to handle for grinding and polishing.
Cold mounting

The process constitutes of mixing the resin and hardener in appropriate ratio and pouring into mould
containing the sample and allow to cure for predetermined time. The process does not heat the
sample.
Hot mounting

The process constitutes of adding thermosetting resin over the sample in the cavity of hot mounting
press and allowing to cure for predetermined time. The process leads to heating of the sample.
3. Grinding
It is used to remove deep grooves, burrs, etc. from the sample after sectioning.
Twin disc grinding/polishing machine
Belt grinder

Abrasive papers
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4. Polishing

It is done to generate a scratch free surface or mirror finish surface.

There are three stages of polishing:

a. Stage 1 - Coarse polishing is done using different

grades of SiC papers pasted on a rotating disc. It
may be done in dry or wet condition.
b. Stage 2 - Fine polishing is done using suspension of
Al2O3 powder in water added to cloth pasted on a
rotating disc.
c. Stage 3 - Further polishing can be done using
diamond paste and colloidal silica.
5. Etching
The process of revealing microstructure using chemicals is called etching. The etchant reacts with the
polished surface and reveals the microstructure. The etchant is designed to chemically react with
various phases in the microstructure.

Few common etchants

Name of the
Composition Procedure Type of alloy
etchant
Distilled water 190 ml
Nitric acid 5 ml 10-30 second immersion. Excellent for aluminium and
Kellers reagent
Hydrochloric acid 3 ml Use only fresh etchant titanium alloys.
Hydrofluoric acid 2 ml
Distilled water 92 ml
Kroll’s reagent Nitric acid 6 ml Swab specimen up to 20 Excellent for titanium alloys.
Hydrofluoric acid 2 ml seconds
Ethanol 100 ml Immersion up to a few Common for iron, alloys steels
Nital
Nitric acid 1-10 ml minutes. and cast iron

Note: One needs to read the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) before handling chemicals.

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6. Cleaning and Storage

The sample should be cleaned thoroughly in a ultrasonic bath with acetone/ethanol. Thereafter,
samples are stored in vacuum desiccators.
Macrostructure

The structure can be seen by naked eyes after etching with a chemical.

Columnar grains

1 cm
Pure Aluminium
Microscopy techniques
Field Emission
Scanning Electron Microscope
FESEM

Optical Microscope
Microstructure

The structure can be seen only using different microscopy techniques after etching.

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Microstructure of three different alloys – steel, solder and cast iron (from left to right) are
shown above.

Suggested reading for metaloography: https://www.georgevandervoort.com/metallography/general.html

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