Notes

4 min read

Material Properties and Engineering vs True Stress & Strain

An introduction to material properties, how to perform a tensile test, engineering and true stress and strain, poisson's ratio and hardening

4 min read

Hardness, Toughness, Creep & Fatigue

Brinell and VIckers hardness, investigating toughness, the charpy impact test, creep resistance, creep curves, creep law, fatigue cracks.

4 min read

Bonding

Ionic, covalent, metallic & van der Waals bonds, including molecular, macromolecular & hydrogen bonding, interatomic forces & bond energies.

3 min read

Crystal Structures

The Hard Sphere Model, packing in 2 & 3 dimensions, Simple cubic, BCC, FCC, HCP lattices and atomic density.

3 min read

Defects & Deformation of Crystal Structures

Slip & slip systems in HCP, FCC BCC lattices, point, line & area defects, edge & screw dislocations, grain boundaries & strengthening.

5 min read

Non-Ferrous Alloys & Strengthening

Types of alloying, complete & partial solid solutions, equilibrium phase diagrams, eutectic point, solid solution & precipitation hardening.

5 min read

Ferrous Alloys & Strengthening

Steels, cast iron, ferrite, austenite, cementinte, pearlite, bainite, normalising, quenching, tempering, tempered martensite, eutectoid.

2 min read

Ceramics

Crystal structure and properties of ceramics, degree of ionic character, bending tests, manufacturing ceramics, pressing and sintering.

5 min read

Polymers

Polymer structure, thermoplastics, thermosets, elastomers, tensile & temperature dependent properties of polymers, plastic creep & failure.

3 min read

Composites

Composite structure & types, critical fibre length, fibre volume fraction, isostrain/isostress, metal matrix, ceramic matrix, polymer matrix