Definitions:

1) Atomic packing factor: is the fraction of volume in a crystal structure

that is occupied by constituent particles. It is dimensionless and always
less than unity.
2) Atomic Structure: The definition of atomic structure is the positively
charged nucleus and the negatively charged electrons circling around it,
within an atom.
3) Binary system: a system consisting of two parts.
4) Body centred cubic cell: is a cube (all sides of the same length and
all face perpendicular to each other) with an atom at each corner of the
unit cell and an atom in the center of the unit cell.
5) Brinell hardness: the hardness of a metal or alloy measured by
hydraulically pressing a hard ball under a standard load into the specimen.
6) Brittle fracture: fracture of a metal or other material occurring without
appreciable prior plastic deformation.
7) Brittle material: A material is brittle if, when subjected to stress, it
breaks without significant deformation (strain). Brittle materials absorb
relatively little energy prior to fracture, even those of high strength.
Breaking is often accompanied by a snapping sound.
8) Charpy test: The Charpy impact test, also known as the Charpy V-notch
test, is a standardized high strain-rate test which determines the amount
of energy absorbed by a material during fracture.
9) Chemical bond: a mutual attraction between two atoms resulting from
a redistribution of their outer electrons.
10)
Coefficient of thermal expansion: describes how the size of
an object changes with a change in temperature. Specifically, it measures
the fractional change in size per degree change in temperature at a
constant pressure.
11)
Covalent bonding: a chemical bond between two atoms or
radicals formed by the sharing of a pair (single bond), two pairs (double
bond), or three pairs of electrons (triple bond).
12)
Crystal imperfections: in the regular geometrical arrangement
of the atoms in a crystalline solid. These imperfections result from
deformation of the solid, rapid cooling from high temperature, or highenergy radiation (X-rays or neutrons) striking the solid.
13)
Crystal structure: In mineralogy and crystallography, a crystal
structure is a unique arrangement of atoms, ions or molecules in a
crystalline liquid or solid.
14)
Crystallography: is the experimental science of determining the
arrangement of atoms in the crystalline solids (see crystal structure).
15)
Deformation: In Material science, deformation refers to any
changes in the shape or size of an object due to:

An applied force (the deformation energy in this case is transferred

through work) or
A change in temperature (the deformation energy in this case is
transferred through heat).

16)

Dislocation: lines along which and in the vicinity of which the

regular arrangement of the atomic planes characteristic for the crystal is
disrupted.
17)
Ductile Fracture: In ductile materials (ductile fracture), the crack
moves slowly and is accompanied by a large amount of plastic
deformation. The crack will usually not extend unless an increased stress
is applied. On the other hand, in dealing with brittle fracture, cracks
spread very rapidly with little or no plastic deformation.
18)
Ductile material: In materials science, ductility is a solid
material's ability to deform under tensile stress; this is often characterized
by the material's ability to be stretched into a wire.
19)
Elastic deformation: When a sufficient load is applied to a
metal or other structural material, it will cause the material to change
shape. This change in shape is called deformation. A temporary shape
change that is self-reversing after the force is removed, so that the object
returns to its original shape.
20)
Elongation: the action or process of lengthening something.
21)
Eutectic point: the temperature at which a particular eutectic
mixture freezes or melts.
22)
Eutectic reaction: This type of reaction is an invariant reaction,
because it is in thermal equilibrium; another way to define this is the
Gibbs free energy equals zero. Tangibly, this means the liquid and two
solid solutions all coexist at the same time and are in chemical
equilibrium.
23)
Eutectic: upon cooling, a liquid phase transforms isothermally and
reversibly into two intimately mixed solid phases; the lowest melting
composition in a material system.
24)
Eutectoid reaction: is a three-phase reaction by which, on
cooling, a solid transforms into two other solid phases at the same time. If
the bottom of a single-phase solid field closes (and provided the adjacent
two-phase fields are solid also), it does so with a eutectoid point.
25)
Engineering stress: is the applied load divided by the original
cross-sectional area of a material. Also known as nominal stress.
26)
Engineering strain: is the amount that a material deforms per
unit length in a tensile test. Also known as nominal strain.
27)
Eutectoid: upon cooling, one solid phase transforms isothermally
and reversibly into two new solid phases that are intimately mixed.
28)
Face centred cubic cell: the atoms lying along the diagonal of
each face are in contact with each other. Thus the diagonal of each face
has a length of 4 r, where r is the radius of an atom. Atoms, of course, do
not have well-defined bounds, and the radius of an atom is somewhat
ambiguous.
29)
Fracture stress: is the stress that causes separation of an object
or material into two or more pieces under the action of stress.
30)
Grain boundaries: is the interface between two grains, or
crystallites, in a polycrystalline material. Grain boundaries are defects in

the crystal structure, and tend to decrease the electrical and thermal
conductivity of the material.
31)
Hardness: is a measure of how resistant solid matter is to various
kinds of permanent shape change when a compressive force is applied.
32)
Hexagonal close packed: is described by a hexagonal unit cell,
which has a diamond shaped or hexagonal base with sides of equal length
(a = b). The base is perpendicular to the longest side (length c)) of the
unit cell. An atom is centered on each corner of the unit cell. An atom is
also centered inside the unit cell, and two atoms whose center lie outside
the unit cell extended into the unit cell.
33)
Hookes law: is a principle of physics that states that the force
needed to extend or compress a spring by some distance
is
unproportional to that distance
34)
Hydrogen bond: a weak bond between two molecules resulting
from an electrostatic attraction between a proton in one molecule and an
electronegative atom in the other.
35)
Hypereutectic: containing the minor component in excess of that
contained in the eutectoid.
36)
Hypoeutectic: containing the minor component in an amount
less than in the eutectic mixture.
37)
Interstitial atoms: atom or ion situated in the interstices of a crystal
lattice.
38)
Ionic bond: is the bonding between a non-metal and a metal, that
occurs when charged atoms (ions) attract after one loses one or more of
its electrons, and gives it to the other molecule, for example sodium and
chlorine.
39)
Metallic bonding: is the electrostatic attraction between the
positively charged atomic nuclei of metal atoms and the delocalised
electrons in the metal.
40)
Necking: is a mode of tensile deformation where relatively large
amounts of strain localize disproportionately in a small region of the
material. The resulting prominent decrease in local cross-sectional area
provides the basis for the name "neck.
41)
Peritectic reaction: taking place between the solid phases and
the still unsolidified portions of the liquid melt.
42)
Peritectic: taking place between the solid phases and the still
unsolidified portions of the liquid melt.
43)
Peritectoid: type of isothermal reversible reaction that has two
solid phases reacting with each other upon cooling of a binary, ternary, ...,
alloy to create a completely different and single solid phase.
44)
Phase: a portion of a system that has uniform physical and
chemical characteristics. Two distinct phases in a system have distinct
physical or chemical characteristics (e.g. water and ice) and are separated
from each other by definite phase boundaries. A phase may contain one or
more components.
45)
Plastic deformation: When the stress is sufficient to
permanently deform the metal shape.

46)

Poissons ration: The Poisson ratio is the fraction (or percent) of

expansion divided by the fraction (or percent) of compression, for small

values of these changes. Conversely, if the material is stretched rather
than compressed, it usually tends to contract in the directions transverse
to the direction of stretching.
47)
Primary bond: chemical bond that requires some change in
structure of matter. Primary bonds are ionic, covalent, or metallic.
48)
Rockwell hardness: The Rockwell scale is a hardness scale
based on indentation hardness of a material. The Rockwell test determines
the hardness by measuring the depth of penetration of an indenter under
a large load compared to the penetration made by a preload.
49)
Secondary bond: physical bond (sometimes called
van der Waals forces) that involves weak interatomic attractions such as
variations in physical mass or location of electrical charge.
50)
Shear modulus: is one of several quantities for measuring the
stiffness of materials. All of them arise in the generalized Hooke's law:
Young's modulus describes the material's response to linear stress (like
pulling on the ends of a wire or putting a weight on top of a column).
51)
Shear stress: is a stress state where the stress is parallel to the
surface of the material, as opposed to normal stress when the stress is
vertical to the surface.
52)
Solid solubility: The degree to which one solid component can
dissolve another (i.e. to form a solid solution). The variation in solid
solubility with temperature is defined on a phase diagram by the solvus
line.
53)
Space lattice: regular, indefinitely repeated array of points in
three dimensions in which the points lie at the intersections of three sets
of parallel equidistant planes.
54)
Specific heat capacity: the heat required to raise the
temperature of the unit mass of a given substance by a given amount
(usually one degree).
55)
Strain: A force tending to pull or stretch something to an extreme
or damaging degree.
56)
Stress: pressure or tension exerted on a material object.
57)
Substitutional atoms: is an atom of a different type than the
bulk atoms, which has replaced one of the bulk atoms in the lattice.
58)
Tensile strength: the resistance of a material to breaking under
tension.
59)
The lever rule: The lever rule is a mechanical analogy to the
mass balance calculation. The tie line in the two-phase region is analogous
to a lever balanced on a fulcrum.
60)
Theoretical density: is the density which is calculated.
61)
Thermal conductivity: the property of a material to conduct
heat (the rate at which heat passes through a specified material,
expressed as the amount of heat that flows per unit time through a unit
area with a temperature gradient of one degree per unit distance.)

62)

Thermal shock resistance: the ability of refractory and other

brittle materials to withstand thermal loads caused by changes in

temperature upon heating or cooling.
63)
Thermal shock: a sudden temperature fluctuation causing stress
in an object or substance.
64)
Thermal Stress: Stress introduced by uniform or non-uniform
temperature change in a structure or material which is constrained against
expansion or contraction.
65)
True stress: is the applied load divided by the actual crosssectional area (the changing area with respect to time) of the specimen at
that load.
66)
True strain: equals the natural log of the quotient of current
length over the original length.
67)
Toughness: is the ability of a material to absorb energy and
plastically deform without fracturing. One definition of material toughness
is the amount of energy per unit volume that a material can absorb before
rupturing. It is also defined as a material's resistance to fracture when
stressed.
68)
Ultimate tensile strength: is the maximum stress that a
material can withstand while being stretched or pulled before failing or
breaking.
69)
Vacancy: a defect in a crystalline solid caused by the absence of
an atom, ion, or molecule from its position in the crystal lattice.
70)
Vickers hardness: an indentation hardness test for metals in
which a 136-degree diamond pyramid is pressed into the surface of the
metal being tested by a load of 5 to 120 kilograms.
71)
Yield strength: A yield strength or yield point of a material is
defined in engineering and materials science as the stress at which a
material begins to deform plastically. Prior to the yield point the material
will deform elastically and will return to its original shape when the applied
stress is removed.
72)
Youngs modulus: A measure of elasticity, equal to the ratio of
the stress acting on a substance to the strain produced.

1. Ultimate stress
2. Yield stress
3. Fracture
4. Strain hardening region
5. Necking region
A: Engineering stress (F/A0)
B: True stress (F/A)

Material Science
Stress-strain graph for a ductile material (copper).

L = the limit of proportionality, Hookes law applies up to this point.

E = elastic limit, beyond this point the material is permanently

stretch and it will not go back to its original length. Elastic behaviour
is when a material returns to its original length, plastic behaviour is
when the stretched material does not return to its original length.

Y = yield point, beyond this point small increases in force give much
big increases in length.

B = breaking point / breaking stress, the material breaks at this

point.

Difference between engineering stress and true

stress:
The context of this lesson is written with respect to the tensile test. Sometimes
the stress plotted in stress-strain diagrams is obtained by dividing the load, P, by
the cross-sectional area, A0 of the specimen measured before any deformation
has taken place. Since the cross-sectional area of the specimen decreases as P
increases, the stress plotted in the diagram may not represent the actual stress
in the specimen. The difference between the engineering stress:

(Eq1)

P
A0

And the true stress:

P

t =

(Eq2)

Obtained by dividing P by the cross-sectional area A of the deformed

specimen becomes apparent in ductile materials after yield has started.
While the engineering stress, , which is directly proportional to the load,
P, decreases with P during the necking phase, the true stress t, which is
proportional to P and inversely proportional to A, is observed to keep
increasing until rupture of the specimen occurs.
Difference between true strain and engineering strain:
Many scientists also use a definition of strainmdifferent from that of the
engineering strain:

(Eq3)

L0

Instead of using the total elongation and the original value L0 of the gage
length, all the successive values of L are used that have been recorded. Dividing
each increment L of the distance between the gage marks, by the
corresponding value of L, the elementary strain is obtained:
L
=

Adding the successive values of , the true strain, t, is defined:

L
t = =

With the summation replaced by an integral, the true strain can also be
expressed as follows:

t =

dL
L

L0

= ln

L
L0

or:

(Eq4)

t = ln

L
L0

Hardness measurement:
Rockwell hardness test:
A minor load of 10 kg is first applied, which causes an initial penetration
and holds the indenter in place. Then, the dial is set to zero and the major
load is applied. Upon removal of the major load, the depth reading is
taken while the minor load is still on. The hardness number may then be
read directly from the scale
Brinell hardness test:
The Brinell hardness test uses a desk top machine to press a 10mm
diameter, hardened steel ball into the surface of the test specimen. The
machine applies a load of 500 kilograms for soft metals such as copper,
brass and thin stock. A 1500 kilogram load is used for aluminium castings,
and a 3000 kilogram load is used for materials such as iron and steel. The
load is usually applied for 10 to 15 seconds. After the impression is made,
a measurement of the diameter of the resulting round impression is taken.
Vickers hardness test:
All Vickers ranges use a 136 pyramidal diamond indenter that forms a
square indent.

The indenter is pressed into the sample by an accurately controlled

test force.

The force is maintained for a specific dwell time, normally 10 15

seconds.

After the dwell time is complete, the indenter is removed leaving an

indent in the sample that appears square shaped on the surface.

The size of the indent is determined optically by measuring the two

diagonals of the square indent.

The Vickers hardness number is a function of the test force divided by the
surface area of the indent. The average of the two diagonals is used in the
following formula to calculate the Vickers hardness
Toughness measurement:
How do we measure fracture toughness:
Two examples:
A - Measure the critical stress intensity (KIc) in plane strain by measuring
the stress required to propagate a sharp crack.

B - Measure the energy absorbed in a rapid fracture of a bar - the Charpy

test.
The first method measures a quantity corresponding to the values in the
equations discussed (but a pre-existing crack is used).
The second test is a more macroscopic test but it includes the effect of
crack nucleation (which may be difficult enough to raise the effective
toughness).

Impact test
A specimen of standard size with a notch on one side is clamped in a vice.
A heavy pendulum is lifted to a height h0 above the vice and is released. It
swings under gravity, strikes the specimen and continues to height h1
shown by the final reading on the dial gauge.

Differnces between the Charpy test and the Izod test:

1. In the Izod method, the test material was placed in a vertical
position, while in the Charpy method, the test material was placed
horizontally.
2. The notch in the izod test is facing the striker, fastened in a
pendulum, while in the charpy test, the notch is positioned away
from the striker.
3. In the Charpy method, there are two kinds of notches, the V-notch
and the U-notch, while in the Izod method, there is only one kind of
notch.
4. Izod test angle is 90 whereas in Charpy the angle Is 120.
Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change in volume in
response to a change in temperature, through heat transfer.
How does an engineering component change in size when
heated?
Temperature is a monotonic function of the average molecular kinetic
energy of a substance. When a substance is heated, the kinetic energy of
its molecules increases. Thus, the molecules begin moving more and
usually maintain a greater average separation. Materials which contract
with increasing temperature are unusual; this effect is limited in size, and
only occurs within limited temperature ranges (see examples below). The
degree of expansion divided by the change in temperature is called the
material's coefficient of thermal expansion and generally varies with
temperature.

How do materials conduct heat?

Heat transfer occurs at a higher rate across materials of high thermal
conductivity than across materials of low thermal conductivity (using
electrons).