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Material

Materials can be categorized in several ways, including by their microscopic structure, larger scale structure, properties, and use. At the microscopic level, materials include ceramics, glasses, metals, polymers, and hybrids. Larger scale structures include foams and textiles. Materials can also be classified based on their mechanical, thermal, optical, electrical, and magnetic properties. Finally, materials are often categorized based on their intended use, such as for construction, insulation, refractory applications, aerospace, and biomaterials.

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85 views3 pages

Material

Materials can be categorized in several ways, including by their microscopic structure, larger scale structure, properties, and use. At the microscopic level, materials include ceramics, glasses, metals, polymers, and hybrids. Larger scale structures include foams and textiles. Materials can also be classified based on their mechanical, thermal, optical, electrical, and magnetic properties. Finally, materials are often categorized based on their intended use, such as for construction, insulation, refractory applications, aerospace, and biomaterials.

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Material

Various different materials classified by microstructure. Clockwise from top-left: steel kitchen container
(metals), terracotta flowerpots (ceramics), plastics (polymers), and wooden pallets (composites).

Material is a substance or mixture of substances that constitutes an object. Materials can be pure or impure,
living or non-living matter. Materials can be classified on the basis of their physical and chemical properties,
or on their geological origin or biological function. Materials science is the study of materials, their
properties and their applications.

Raw materials can be processed in different ways to influence their properties, by purification, shaping or
the introduction of other materials. New materials can be produced from raw materials by synthesis.

In industry, materials are inputs to manufacturing processes to produce products or more complex materials.

Historical elements
Materials chart the history of humanity. The system of the three prehistoric ages (Stone Age, Bronze Age,
Iron Age) were succeeded by historical ages: steel age in the 19th century, polymer age in the middle of the
following century (plastic age) and silicon age in the second half of the 20th century.

Classification by use
Materials can be broadly categorized in terms of their use, for example:

Building materials are used for construction


Building insulation materials are used to retain heat within buildings
Refractory materials are used for high-temperature applications
Nuclear materials are used for nuclear power and weapons
Aerospace materials are used in aircraft and other aerospace applications
Biomaterials are used for applications interacting with living systems
Material selection is a process to determine which material should be used for a given application.

Classification by structure
The relevant structure of materials has a different length scale depending on the material. The structure and
composition of a material can be determined by microscopy or spectroscopy.

Microstructure

In engineering, materials can be categorised according to their microscopic structure:[1]: 1 5–17 

Ceramics: non-metal, inorganic solids


Glasses: amorphous solids
Metals: pure or combined chemical elements with specific chemical bonding behavior
Polymers: materials based on long carbon or silicon chains
Hybrids: combinations of multiple materials, for example composites.

Larger-scale structure

A metamaterial is any material engineered to have a property that is not found in naturally occurring
materials, usually by combining several materials to form a composite and / or tuning the shape, geometry,
size, orientation and arrangement to achieve the desired property.[2]

In foams and textiles, the chemical structure is less relevant to immediately observable properties than
larger-scale material features: the holes in foams, and the weave in textiles.

Classification by properties
Materials can be compared and classified by their large-scale physical properties.

Mechanical properties

Mechanical properties determine how a material responds to applied forces.

Examples include:

Stiffness
Strength
Toughness
Hardness

Thermal properties
Materials may degrade or undergo changes of properties at different temperatures. Thermal properties also
include the material's thermal conductivity and heat capacity, relating to the transfer and storage of thermal
energy by the material.

Other properties

Materials can be compared and categorized by any quantitative measure of their behavior under various
conditions. Notable additional properties include the optical, electrical, and magnetic behavior of
materials.[1]: 5 –7 

See also
Hyle, the Greek term, relevant for the philosophy of matter
Matter
Category:Materials

References
1. Ashby, Michael; Shercliff, Hugh; Cebon, David (2010). Materials engineering, science,
processing and design (2nd ed.). Oxford: Elsevier. ISBN 9781856178952.
2. Kshetrimayum, R.S. (January 2005). "A brief intro to metamaterials" (https://ieeexplore.ieee.o
rg/document/1368916). IEEE Potentials. 23 (5): 44–46. doi:10.1109/MP.2005.1368916 (http
s://doi.org/10.1109%2FMP.2005.1368916). ISSN 0278-6648 (https://www.worldcat.org/issn/
0278-6648). S2CID 36925376 (https://api.semanticscholar.org/CorpusID:36925376).

External links

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