Advanced Materials Engineering: Key Concepts

These flashcards cover key vocabulary and concepts related to advanced materials engineering from the lecture notes.

Organic Materials

Substances primarily composed of carbon atoms bonded to hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and other elements, derived from living organisms or synthesized to mimic natural compounds.

Semiconductors

Materials with electrical properties intermediate between conductors and insulators, which change conductivity when charged with electricity or light.

Biomaterials

Materials used in components implanted in the human body, which must be compatible with body tissue and not produce toxic substances.

Smart Materials

Materials that sense and react to environmental conditions or stimuli such as mechanical, chemical, electrical, or magnetic signals.

Nanomaterials

Materials with structural features on the nanometer scale, typically defined as having dimensions less than 100 nanometers.

Dislocation

A linear defect in a crystal structure around which there is an misalignment of atoms.

Ionic Bonds

Chemical bonds formed through the transfer of electrons from one atom to another, resulting in the formation of positively and negatively charged ions.

Covalent Bonds

Chemical bonds that involve the sharing of electron pairs between atoms.

Atomic Packing Factor (APF)

A measure of how closely packed the atoms in a unit cell are, defined as the volume of atoms in the unit cell divided by the volume of the unit cell.

Polymorphism

The ability of a solid material to exist in more than one form or crystal structure.

Crystalline Structure

A solid material whose constituents are arranged in a highly ordered microscopic structure, forming a crystal lattice.

Grain Boundaries

The interface where crystals of different orientations meet within a polycrystalline material.

Solid Solution

A homogeneous crystalline phase that contains two or more chemical species.

Diffusion

The process whereby atoms or molecules move from an area of high concentration to an area of low concentration.

Fick’s Laws of Diffusion

A set of equations that describe the diffusion of substances in terms of concentration gradients.

Hall-Petch Relationship

An empirical relationship that shows how grain size affects the yield strength of materials.

Cold Work

The process of strengthening a material by plastic deformation at temperatures below its recrystallization temperature.

Recrystallization

The process of forming new strain-free grains in a material following cold work.

Tensile Strength

The maximum amount of tensile (stretching) stress that a material can withstand before failure.

Yield Strength

The amount of stress at which a material begins to deform plastically.