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Introduction

1.1Introduction and synopsis

'Design' is one of those words that means all things to all people. Every manufactured thing,
from the most lyrical of ladies' hats to the greasiest of gearboxes, qualifies, in some sense or
other, as a design. It can mean yet more. Nature, to some is Divine Design; to others it is
designed by Natural Selection, the ultimate genetic algorithm. The reader will agree that it is
necessary to narrow the field, at least a little.
This book is about mechanical design, and the role of materials in it. Mechanical components
have mass; they carry loads; they conduct heat and electricity; they are exposed to wear and
to corrosive environments; they are made of one or more materials; they have shape; and they
must be manufactured (Figure 1.1). The book describes how these activities are related.
Materials have limited design since man first made clothes, built shelters and waged wars.
They still do. But materials and processes to shape them are developing faster now than at any
previous time in history; the challenges and opportunities they present are greater than ever
before. The book develops a strategy for exploiting materials in design.

1.2 Materials in design

Design is the process of translating a new idea or a market need into the detailed information
from which a product can be manufactured. Each of its stages requires decisions about the
materials from which the product is to be made and the process for making it. Normally, the
choice of material is dictated by the design. But sometimes it is the other way round: the new
product, or the evolution of the existing one, was suggested or made possible by the new
material. The number of materials available to the engineer is vast: something between 40000
and 80000 are at his or her (from here on 'his' means both) disposal. And although
standardization strives to reduce the number, the continuing appearance of new materials with novel, e
How, then, does the engineer choose, from this vast menu, the material best suited for his purpose?
Must he rely on experience? Or can a systematic procedure be formulated for making a rational
choice? The question has to be answered at a number of levels, corresponding to the stage
the design has reached. At the beginning the design is fluid and the options are wide; all
materials must be considered. As the design becomes more focused and takes shape, the
selection criteria sharpen and the shortlist of materials which can satisfy their narrows. Then
more accurate data is required (although for a lesser number of materials) and a different way
of analyzing the choice must be used. In the final stages of design, precise data are needed,
but for still fewer materials -perhaps only one. The procedure must recognize the initial richness
of choice, narrow this to a small subset, and provide the precision and detail on which final design calc
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2 Materials Selection in Mechanical Design

Function

Material

Process

Fig. 1.1 Function, material, process and shape interact. Later chapters deal with each in turn.

The choice of material cannot be made independently of the choice of process by which the
material is to be formed, joined, finished, and otherwise treated. Cost enters, both in the choice of
material and in the way the material is processed. And- it must be recognized- good engineering
design alone is not enough to sell a product. In almost everything from home appliances through
automobiles to aircraft, the form, texture, feel, color, decoration of the product - the satisfaction it
gives the person who buys or uses it - is important. This aesthetic aspect (known confusingly as
'industrial design') is not treated in most courses on engineering, but it is one that, if neglected, can
lose the manufacturer his market. Good design work; excellent designs also give pleasure.

Design problems, almost always, are open-ended. They do not have a unique or 'correct'
solution, although some solutions will clearly be better than others. They differ from the analytical
problems used in teaching mechanics, or structures, or thermodynamics, or even materials, which
generally do have single, correct answers. So the first tool a designer needs is an open mind: the
willingness to consider all possibilities. But a net cast widely draws in many fish. A procedure is
necessary for selecting the excellent from the merely good.
This book deals with the materials aspects of the design process. It develops a methodology
which, properly applied, provides guidance through the forest of complex choices the designer faces.
The ideas of material and process attributes are introduced. They are mapped on material and
process selection charts which show the lay of the land, so to speak, and simplify the initial survey
for potential candidate materials. The interaction between material and shape can be built into the
method, as can the more complex aspects of optimizing the balance between performance and
cost. None of this can be implemented without data for material properties and process attributes:
ways to find them are described. The role of aesthetics in engineering design is discussed.
The forces driving change in the materials world are surveyed. The Appendices contain useful
information.
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Introduction 3

The methodology has further applications. It suggests a strategy for material development,
particularly of composites and structured materials like sandwich panels. It points to a scheme for
identifying the most promising applications for new materials. And it lends itself readily to computer
implementation, offering the potential for interfaces with computer-aided design, function modeling,
optimization routines and so on.
All this will be found in the following chapters, with case studies illustrating applications. But
first, a little history.

1.3 The evolution of engineering materials

Throughout history, materials have limited design. The ages in which man has lived are named for
the materials he used: stone, bronze, iron. And when he died, the materials he treasured were
buried with him: Tutankhamen with shards of colored glass in his stone sarcophagus, Agamemnon
with his bronze sword and mask of gold, each representing the high technology of his day.
If they had lived and died today, what would they have taken with them? Their titanium watch,
perhaps; their carbon-fibre reinforced tennis racquet, their metal-matrix composite mountain bike,
their polyether-ethyl-ketone crash helmet. This is not the age of one material; it is the age of a huge
range of materials. There has never been an era in which the evolution of materials was faster and
the range of their properties more varied. The menu of materials available to the engineer has
expanded so rapidly that designers who left college twenty years ago can still forgo knowing that
half of them exist. But not-to-know is, for the designer, to risk disaster. Innovative design, often,
means the imaginative exploitation of the properties offered by new or improved materials. And for
the man on the street, the schoolboy even, not-to-know is to miss one of the great developments of
our age: the age of advanced materials.
This evolution and its increasing pace are illustrated in Figure 1.2. The materials of pre-history (>
lO 000 BC, the Stone Age) were ceramics and glasses, natural polymers and composites.
Weapons - always the peak of technology - were made of wood and flint; buildings and bridges of
stone and wood. Naturally occurring gold and silver were available locally but played only a minor
role in technology. The discovery of copper and bronze and then iron (the Bronze Age, 4000 BC
-1000 BC and the Iron Age, 1000 BC-AD 1620) stimulated enormous advances, replacing the older
wooden and stone weapons and tools (there is a cartoon on my office door, put there by a student,
presenting an aggrieved Celt confronting a swordsmith with the words 'You sold me this bronze
sword last week and now I'm supposed to upgrade to iron!'). Cast iron technology (1620s) established
the dominance of metals in engineering; and the evolution of steels (1850 onward), light alloys
(1940s) and special alloys since then consolidated their position. By the 1960s, 'engineering
materials' meant 'metals'. Engineers were given courses in metallurgy; other materials were barely
mentioned.
There have, of course, been developments in other classes of materials. Portland cement,
refractories, fused silica among ceramics, and rubber, bakelite, and polyethylene among polymers,
but their share of the total materials market was small. Since 1960 all that has changed. The rate of
development of new metallic alloys is now slow; demand for steel and cast iron has in some
countries actually fallen*. The polymer and composite industries, on the other hand, are growing
rapidly, and projections of the growth of production of the new high-performance ceramics suggest
rapid expansion here too.

* Do not, however, imagine that the days of steel are over. Steel production accounts for 90% of all world metal output, and its
unique combination of strength, ductility. toughness and low price make steel irreplaceable.
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4 Materials Selection in Mechanical Design

10 000 BC 5000 BC 0 1000 1500 1800 1900 1940 1960 1980 1990 2000 2010 20 0

Metals I Metals
Glassy metals
Cast Iron
AI -lithium alloys Development slow :
(L) Steels mostly quality
(.) Dual phase steels control and
c Alloy
rn Steels Microalloyed steels
-"-
New super alloys
0 a. Light
E Alloys

(L) Super Alloys

-~

-
rn
Stone
Titanium }
Zirconium Alloys
Etc
CD a: Flint
Pottery
Glass
Cement
Refractories
Portland
Cement
MF A86
10 000 BC 5000 BC 0 1000 1500 1800 1900 1940 1960 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Date
Fig. 1.2 The evolution of engineering materials with time. 'Relative Importance' in the stone and bronze ages
is based on assessments of archaeologists; that in 1960 was based on allocated teaching hours in UK and
US universities; that in 2020 on predictions of material usage in automobiles by manufacturers.
The time scale is non-linear. The rate of change is far faster today than at any previous time in history.

This rapid rate of change offers opportunities which the designer cannot afford to ignore. The
following case study is an example. There are more in Chapter 15.

1.4 The evolution of materials in vacuum cleaners

'Sweeping and dusting are homicide practices: they consist of taking dust from the floor, mixing it
in the atmosphere, and causing it to be inhaled by the inhabitants of the house. In reality it would
be preferable to leave the dust alone where it is.'

That was a doctor, writing about 100 years ago. More than any previous generation, the Victorians
and their contemporaries in other countries worried about dust. They were convinced that it carried
disease and that dust merely dispersed it where, as the doctor said, it became yet more infectious.
Little wonder, then, that they invented the vacuum cleaner.
The vacuum cleaners of 1900 and before were human-powered (Figure 1.3(a)). The housemaid,
standing firmly on the flat base, pumped the handle of the cleaner, compressing bellows which, with
leather flap-valves to give a one-way flow, sucked air through a metal can contain the filter at a flow
rate of about 1 liters per second. The butler manipulated the hose. The materials are, by today's
standards, primitive: the cleaner is made almost entirely from natural polymers and fibers; wood,
canvas, leather and rubber. The only metal is the straps which link the bellows (soft iron) and the
can contain the filter (mild steel sheet, rolled to make a cylinder). It reflects the use of materials in
1900. Even a car, in 1900, was mostly made of wood, leather, and rubber; only the engine and drive
train had to be metal.
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Introduction5

(a) 1905 (b) 1950

(c) 1985 (d) 1997

Fig. 1.3 Vacuum cleaners: (a) The hand-powered bellows cleaner of 1900, largely made of wood and
leather. (b) The cylinder cleaner of 1950. (c) The lightweight cleaner of 1985, almost entirely polymer.
(d)A centrifugal dust-extraction cleaner of 1997.
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6 Materials Selection in Mechanical Design

Table 1.1 Comparison of cost, power and weight of vacuum cleaners

Cleaner and Date Dominant materials Power Weight Cost*
(W) (kg)

Hand powered, 1900 Wood, canvas, leather 50 10 £240/$380

Cylinder, 1950 Mild Steel 300 6 £96/$150
Cylinder, 1985 Molded AB S and 800 4 £60/$95
polypropylene
Dyson, 1995 Polypropylene, 1200 6.3 £190/$300
polycarbonate, ABS

*Costs have been adjusted to 1998 values, allowing for inflation.

(800 watts) and a corresponding air flow rate; cleaners with twice that power are now available. Air
flow is still axial and dust removal by filtration, but the unit is smaller than the old cylinder cleaners.
This is made possible by a higher power-density in the motor, reflecting better magnetic materials
and higher operating temperatures (heat-resistant insulation, windings and bearings). The casing is
entirely polymeric, and is an example of good design with plastics. The upper part is a single
molding, with all additional bits attached by snap fasteners molded into the original component.
No metal is visible anywhere; even the straight part of the suction tube, metal in all earlier models,
is now polypropylene. The number of components is enormously reduced: the casing has just four
parts, held together by just one fastener, compared with 11 parts and 28 fasteners for the 1950
cleaner. The savings on weight and cost are enormous, as the comparison in Table 1.1 shows.
It is arguable that this design (and its many variants) is near-optimal for today's needs; that a
change of working principle, material or process could increase performance but at a cost penalty
unacceptable to the consumer. We will leave the discussion of balancing performance against cost
to a later chapter, and merely note here that one manufacturer disagrees. The cleaner shown in
Figure 1.3(d) exploits a different concept: that of centrifugal separation, rather than filtration. For
this to work, the power and rotation speed have to be high~ the product is larger, noisier, heavier
and much more expensive than the competition. Yet it sells - a testament to good industrial design
and imaginative, aggressive marketing.
All this has happened within one lifetime. Competitive design requires the innovative use of new
materials and the clever exploitation of their special properties, both engineering and aesthetic.
There have been many manufacturers of vacuum cleaners who failed to innovate and exploit; now
they are extinct. That sombre thought prepares us for the chapters which follow, in which we
consider what they forgot: the optimum use of materials in design.

1.5 Summary and conclusions

The number of engineering materials is large: estimated range from 40 000 to 80 000. The designer
must select from this vast menu the material best suited to his task. This, without guidance, can be
a difficult and tedious business, so there is a temptation to choose the material that is 'traditional'
for the application: glass for bottles; steel cans. That choice may be safely conservative, but it
rejects the opportunity for innovation. Engineering materials are evolving faster, and the choice is
wider than ever before. Examples of products in which a novel choice of material has captured a
market are as common as - well - as plastic bottles. Or aluminum cans. It is important in the early
stages of design, or of re-design, to examine the full materials menu, not rejecting options simply
because they are unfamiliar. And that's what this book is about.
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Introduction 7

1.6 Further reading

The history and evolution of materials
Connoisseurs will tell you that in its 11th edition the Encyclopaedia Britannica reached a peak of
excellence which has not since been equalized, although subsequent editions are still usable. On
matters of general and technical history it, and the seven-volume History of Technology, are the logical
starting points. More specialized books on the history and evolution of metals, ceramics, glass, and
plastics make fascinating browsing. A selection of the most entertaining is given below.

'Encyclopaedia Britannica' , 11th edition. The Encyclopaedia Britannica Company, New York 1910.
Davey, N. (1960) A History of Building Materials. Camelot Press, London, UK.
Delmonte, J. (1985) Origins of Materials and Processes. Technomic Publishing Company, Pennsylvania.
Derry, TK and Williams, TI (1960) A Short History of Technology' . Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Dowson, D. (1979) Hist01y of Tribology'. Longman, London.
Michaelis, R.R. (1992) Gold: art, science and technology, Interdisciplinary Science Reviews, 17(3), 193.
Singer, C., Holmyard, EJ, Hall, AR and Williams, Tl (eds) (1954-1978) A History of Technology (7 volumes plus
annual supplements). Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Tylecoate, R.F. (1992) A History of Metallurgy, 2nd edition. The Institute of Materials, London.

Vacuum cleaners
Forty, A. (1986) Objects of Desire: Design and Society since 1750, Thames and Hudson, London, p.l74 et seq.