Materials Science

•  Historical Perspective

  Stone ® Bronze ® Iron ® Advanced materials

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•  What is Materials Science and Engineering ?

  Processing ® Structure ® Properties ® Performance

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•  Classification of Materials

  Metals, Ceramics, Polymers, Semiconductors

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•  Advanced Materials

  Electronic materials, superconductors, etc.

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•  Modern Material's Needs, Material of Future

  Biodegradable materials, Nanomaterials, “Smart” materials.

•Beginning of the Material Science - People began to make tools from stone – Start of the Stone Age about two million years ago. 

  Natural materials: stone, wood, clay, skins, etc.

•The Stone Age ended about 5000 years ago with introduction of Bronze in the Far East.  Bronze is an alloy (a metal made up of more than one element), copper + < 25% of tin + other elements.

  Bronze: can be hammered or cast into a variety of shapes, can be made harder by alloying, corrode only slowly after a surface oxide film forms.

•The Iron Age began about 3000 years ago and continues today.  Use of iron and steel, a stronger and cheaper material changed drastically daily life of a common person.

 

•Age of Advanced materials: throughout the Iron Age many new types of materials have been introduced (ceramic, semiconductors, polymers, composites…).  Understanding of the relationship among structure, properties, processing, and performance of materials.  Intelligent design of new materials.

A better understanding of structure-composition-properties relations has lead to a remarkable progress in properties of materials. Example is the dramatic progress in the strength to density ratio of materials, that resulted in a wide variety of new products, from dental materials to tennis racquets.