ENGD2007: Strength of Materials

CES Assignment 4: Material Selection

Name: Nizamuddin Patel

Date: 30st November 2016

Learning outcomes

1) Learn to use CES package for material selection

2) Familiarise with material selection process

Part 1: Select Material for Spanner

Functional Specifications

A spanner is used to work with metals, for tightening and loosening of screws, bolts and nuts. It
must have sufficient strength such that it does not deform easily, must be quite hard and wear-
resistant such that it will not be indented and scratched by other objects, and it must be stiff
enough to avoid deflection during service. In addition, the material for a spanner must be tough
to avoid fracture and breaking. Furthermore, the spanner should have good resistance to
moisture, rain and fresh water to avoid rusting.

Properties Requirements

Based on the above specifications and previous experience, the basic requirements on material
properties for a spanner are listed below.

(1) Tensile strength: 500 MPa (minimum)

(2) Young’s modulus: 150 GPa (minimum)
(3) Hardness: 400 HV (minimum)
(4) Fracture toughness: 100 MPa m1/2 (minimum)
(5) Price: must be less than £10/kg (maximum)
(6) Good wear and corrosion resistance
Your Task:

Select a material which satisfies all (or most) of the above requirements, with cost and other
considerations.

Selection Procedure

(1) Open the CES Edupack

(2) Select Level 2
(3) Click Select
(4) Choose Edu Level 2 from the Select from field
(5) choose Limit under 2. Selection Stages
You are entering the Limit Selection stage. A list of properties should appear on the right
hand side of the screen.
(6) From the list, click the relevant properties category. In the tables prompted, enter the
above properties requirements in appropriate Minimum and Maximum fields. Note that
not all properties can be entered in the table. Just enter as many as you can. Consider
other properties separately if they cannot be entered.

(7) Click Apply

(8) A final list of candidate materials will appear in the 3: Results field. All these materials
satisfy the basic requirements. You can print this list by the normal printing procedure.

(9) Double-click on each material in the list to open an Information Table. Note down the
relevant information listed in the following table.

Complete the following table, analyse the data (in particular properties and price),
compare the advantages and disadvantages of the candidate materials, and make your
final decision on which material to use. Give reasons.

Shortlist materials and properties

Material Tensile Strength Young’s Hardness Fracture Price f

(MPa) Modulus (GPa) (HV) Toughness £ / kg
Low alloy steel 1.16×103 211 416.5 107 0.453
Stainless steel 1.36×103 119.5 350 106 4.53
Which material are you going to select? Give reasons.
 Low alloy steel and stainless steel both have high tensile strength, fracture toughness and
hardness due to the inclusion of Carbon within the elements.
 Low alloy steel is much cheaper than Stainless Steel as it has a price of £0.45/kg,
whereas Stainless steel has a price of £4.53/kg, which means low alloy steel is 10 times
cheaper than Stainless Steel.
 The fracture toughness of low alloy steel (107) is higher than Stainless Steel (106),
meaning it has less resistance to deformation even though it has a 17% lower tensile
strength and 19% lower hardness value to Stainless steel.
 Low Alloy steel has added properties such as Copper and Nickel to improve the
materials resistance to corrosion.
 Due to its high modulus of elasticity (Young’s Modulus), Low Alloy steel is more
optimal for industrial.

Due to the materials properties such as its resistance to corrosion and deformation, along
with the price of the material and the fact that it is more suitable for industrial use, LOW
ALLOY STEEL would be the material that I would select.

Part 2: Select Material for IC Engine Piston

Following similar selection procedures as outlined on page 1, to select a material for pistons with the
following properties:

Ø Density < 6000 kg/m3

Ø Tensile Strength > 200 MPa

Ø Price < 15 GBP/kg

Ø Max Service Temperature > 150 oC

Ø Fracture Toughness > 20 MPa.m1/2

You should produce a table of the shortlist materials and their attributes. Give reasons for
your final choice.
Shortlist materials and properties

Material Tensile Strength Maximum Fracture Can be Price f

(MPa) Service Toughness forged? £ / kg
Temperature
(oC)
Age-hardening 400 160 28 Yes 1.665
wrought Al-alloys
Aluminium/silicon 327.5 297 19.5 No 5.09
carbide composite
Cast Al-alloys 225.5 175 26.5 No 1.73
Commercially pure 550 425 57.5 Yes 8.98
titanium
Non age-hardening 215 175 34 Yes 1.67
wrought Al-alloys
Titanium alloys 1125 475 62.5 Yes 15

Which material are you going to select? Give reasons.

 Aluminium silicon carbide composite is an option, however the fracture toughness
required is 20 MPa.m1/2, therefore the material may not be able to withstand the pressure
within the engine without undergoing any damage.

 Cast Al-alloys is an option as it has a considerably cheap price of £1.73/kg.

 Cast Al-alloy doesn’t have the highest fracture toughness; however, it is still relatively
high in comparison to the other materials.

 Cast Al-alloys also has a high thermal conductivity (around 3 times more than Cast Iron),
for this reason pistons made from this material have less variation in temperature within
the engine.

 Cast Al-alloys are also lightweight and are easy to machine, therefore the material is
more ideal for industrial use.

 The material with the highest fracture toughness is Titanium alloys, however this is £15
which is more expensive per kg, and generally has the highest price amongst all the other
materials.

 Commercially pure titanium could also be a good option as it has a fracture toughness of
57.5, however as the material is going to be used to make pistons, it has to be a material
which is easy to machine, but this material is not ideal for industrial use as it is a material
which is hard to machine. and as the material is very dense, this would make the pistons very
heavy which again makes the material hard to machine, and wouldn’t be ideal in an engine

 Three aluminium alloys remain in the equation at this point, Age Hardening Wrought
Alloys being one of them has the highest tensile strength out of the aluminium alloys,
 Non-Age-hardening Wrought Al-alloys has the lowest tensile strength, however this has
the highest fracture toughness out of the three remaining Aluminium Alloys so has the
ability to withstand more pressure without fracturing or undergoing any damage.

 The process of creating pistons requires materials to undergo either forging or casting,
the Cast Al-alloys are not forgeable, however they are casted and therefore they still
undergo a form of heat treatment during casting and for this reason can be used to
produce pistons, they are also lightweight, and have good structural integrity, as well as
relatively low manufacturing costs. As the mass of the material is low, the force required
to get the piston running and maintain acceleration within the engine will be relatively
low than if the pistons were produced using a different material.

Therefore, the material to be selected in this case would be Cast Al-alloys as it is very cheap in
comparison to other materials and has properties which make the material ideal for usage within
industry.