ME205: Engineering Materials

Lecture#1
Introduction and Elastic Modulus

Dr MZ Ansari
Mechanical Engineering
 1. Introduction
• Materials are evolving today faster than at any time in history.
• Innovation often takes the form of replacing a component
made of one material (a metal, say) with one made of another
(a polymer, perhaps).
• The engineer must compare and weigh the properties of
competing materials with precision: the balance, often, is a
delicate one.
• It involves an understanding of the basic properties of
materials; of how these are controlled by processing; of how
materials are formed, joined and finished; and of the chain of
reasoning that leads to a successful choice.
• There are, it is said, more than 50,000 materials available to
the engineer. In designing a structure or device, how is the
engineer to choose from this vast menu the material which
best suits the purpose? Mistakes can cause disasters.

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 1. Introduction
• More engineering components are made of metals and alloys
than of any other class of solid.
• But increasingly, polymers are replacing metals because they
offer a combination of properties which are more attractive to
the designer.
• New ceramics, at present under development world wide, are
an emerging class of engineering material which may permit
more efficient heat engines, sharper knives, and bearings with
lower friction.
• The engineer can combine the best properties of these
materials to make composites which offer specially attractive
packages of properties.
• And - finally – one should not ignore natural materials like
wood and leather which have properties which - even with the
innovations of today's materials scientists - are hard to beat.
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 1. Introduction
• After mechanical and physical properties of a material, price
and availability is the most important consideration. (1994)

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 2. Elastic Modulus
• The modulus measures the resistance of a material to elastic
(or 'springy') deformation. It is also reflected in the natural
frequency of vibration of a structure.

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 3. Bonding Between Atoms
• In order to understand the origin of material properties like
Young's modulus, we need to focus on materials at the atomic
level. Two things are especially important in influencing the
modulus: (1) Interatomic bonds and (2) Atomic Packing Order
Interatomic bonds
• can be (1) Primary bonds - ionic, covalent or metallic bonds,
which are all relatively strong (generally melting between 1000
and 4000 K), and (2) Secondary bonds - Van der Waals and
hydrogen bonds, which are both relatively weak (generally
melting between 100 and 500 K).
• Ceramics and metals are entirely held together by primary
bonds - the ionic and covalent bond in ceramics, and the
metallic and covalent bond in metals. These strong, stiff bonds
give high moduli. Although much weaker than primary bonds,
secondary bonds are still very important.
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 3. Bonding Between Atoms
• Van der Waals bonding provide the links between polymer
molecules which make them solids. Hydrogen bonds keep
water liquid at room temperature, and bind polymer chains
together to give solid polymers.

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 4. Packing of Atoms in Solids
• The arrangement of atoms (or ions) in crystals can be
described in terms of the smallest grouping called a unit cell.
• PC: occurs only rarely,
• BCC: metals, like chromium, iron, molybdenum, sodium, and
tungsten.
• FCC: metals, like silver, aluminum, lead, copper, and nickel.
• HCP: metals, beryllium, magnesium, titanium, and zinc.

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 4. Packing of Atoms in Solids
• Many engineering materials (almost all metals and ceramics,
for instance) are made up entirely of small crystals or grains in
which atoms are packed in regular, repeating, 3-dimensional
patterns.
• Miller Indices: Planes

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 4. Packing of Atoms in Solids
• Properties like Young's modulus may well vary with direction in
the unit cell; for this (and other) reasons we need a succinct
description of crystal directions, i.e., Direction Indices.

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 5. The physical basis of Young's modulus
Interatomic forces
• Interatomic force,

• Stiffness,

When stretching is small,

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 5. The physical basis of Young's modulus
Moduli of crystals
• Stiffness of a atomic bond can be given as:
• For small strains, So stays constant. It is the spring constant of
the bond).
• This means that the force between a pair of atoms, stretched
apart to a distance r (r ≈ ro), is:

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 5. The physical basis of Young's modulus
• Force between two opposite point charges:

• Work done to move charges:

• Ionic bond (n ≈ 12): where,

• Bond stiffness, , where,

• To calculate So properly, we must sum over all bonds, taking

attractions and repulsions properly into account.
• Na-Cl bond stiffness :

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 5. The physical basis of Young's modulus
• The stiffness of the bond is also proportional to its melting
point: that is why diamond, which has the highest melting point
of any material, also has the highest modulus.

• For metals and ceramics, the values of E we calculate are

about right: the bond-stretching idea explains the stiffness of
these solids.
• However, there exists a whole range of polymers and rubbers
which have moduli which are lower - by up to a factor of 100 -
than the lowest we have calculated. Why is this?
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 5. The physical basis of Young's modulus
Rubbers and the glass transition temperature
• If you take ordinary rubber tubing (a polymer) and cool it down
in liquid nitrogen, it becomes stiff - its modulus rises rather
suddenly from around 10-2 GN m-2 to a 'proper' value of 4GN
m-2. But if you warm it up again, its modulus drops back to 10-2
GNm-2.
• Rubber, like many polymers, is composed of long spaghetti-
like chains of carbon atoms, all tangled together.
• There are covalent bonds along the carbon chain, and where
there are occasional cross-links. These are very stiff, but they
contribute very little to the overall modulus because when you
load the structure it is the flabby Van der Waals bonds
between the chains which stretch, and it is these which
determine the modulus.
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5. The physical basis of Young's modulus

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 5. The physical basis of Young's modulus
• As the rubber warms up to room temperature, the Van der
Waals bonds melt. Many of the most floppy polymers have
half-melted in this way at room temperature. The temperature
at which this happens is called the glass temperature, TG, for
the polymer.
• Some polymers, which have no cross-links, melt completely at
temperatures above TG, becoming viscous liquids.
• Others, containing cross-links, become leathery (like PVC) or
rubbery (as polystyrene butadiene does).
• Some typical values for TG are: polymethylmethacrylate
(PMMA, or perspex), l00°C; polystyrene(PS), 90°C;
polyethylene (low-density form), -20°C; natural rubber, -40°C.
• To summarise, above TG, the polymer is leathery, rubbery or
molten; below, it is a true solid with a modulus of at least 2GN
m-2.
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 5. The physical basis of Young's modulus
Composites
• Is it possible to make polymers stiffer than the Van der Waals
bonds which usually hold them together? The answer is yes -
if we mix into the polymer a second, stiffer, material. Eg.
(a) GFRP - glass-fibre-reinforced polymers, where the polymer is
stiffened or reinforced by long fibres of soda glass;
(b) CFRP - carbon-fibre-reinforced polymers, where the
reinforcement is achieved with fibres of graphite;
(c) KFRP - Kevlar-fibre-reinforced polymers, using Kevlar fibres
(a unique polymer with a high density of covalent bonds
oriented along the fibre axis) as stiffening;
(d) FILLED POLYMERS - polymers into which glass powder or
silica flour has been mixed to stiffen them;
(e) Wood - a natural composite of lignin (an amorphous polymer)
stiffened with fibres of cellulose. 22
 5. The physical basis of Young's modulus
• There is a simple way to estimate the modulus of a fibre-
reinforced composite.
• Equi-strain case:

which is max. limit elastic modulus

• Equi-stress case:

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 5. The physical basis of Young's modulus
• Not all composites contain fibres. Materials can also be
stiffened by (roughly spherical) particles. The moduli of these
particulate composites lie between the upper and lower limits.
• Naturally the resulting particulate composite is isotropic, rather
than anisotropic as would be the case for the fibre-reinforced
composites; and this, too, can be an advantage.

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