Basic Materials Engineering

Flashcards covering key terminology and concepts related to materials engineering.

Crystalline solids

Solids that have atoms arranged in an orderly, repeating pattern.

Short-Range Order (SRO)

Arrangement of atoms extends only to the nearest neighbors.

Long-Range Order (LRO)

Special atomic arrangement extends over large distances (>100 nm), forming a repetitive grid-like structure.

Single crystal

A crystalline material consisting of only one crystal.

Polycrystalline material

Material made up of many crystals (grains) with different orientations.

Amorphous materials

Materials exhibiting only short-range order and lacking a long-range periodic structure.

Lattice

A periodic arrangement of points (lattice points) in a crystal structure.

Bravais lattices

14 distinct arrangements of lattice points used to define 3D crystal structures.

Lattice parameter

Describes the size and shape of the unit cell, including side dimensions and angles.

FCC (Face-Centered Cubic)

One of the three common metallic crystal structures.

Vacancy

A point defect produced when an atom is missing from its crystal site.

Interstitial defect

An extra atom or ion placed in a normally unoccupied position in the crystal structure.

Substitutional defect

A defect that occurs when one atom is replaced by a different atom in the lattice.

Dislocation

A line defect in a crystal that affects mechanical properties.

Edge dislocation

A dislocation characterized by an extra plane of atoms that disrupts the crystal structure.

Screw dislocation

A dislocation that results from skewing part of a crystal.

Plastic deformation

Deformation produced by the movement of dislocations in a material.

Slip plane

The crystallographic plane along which dislocation motion occurs.

Dislocation density

Total dislocation length per unit volume in a material.