ME 215

ENGINEERING MATERIALS FOR DESIGN

CHAPTER 2
DESIGN ENGINEERING AND
SELECTION OF MATERIALS

Design of new products and

development of the existing ones

are the two essiential purposes of engineering.

In the course of designing a machine element
or a component, an engineer has to consider
many requirements.
One of the most important areas of design
thinking is the selection of the suitable
material from which a part is to be produced.

Chapter overview
1.
2.
3.
4.

Fundamental aspects of the design procedure

Likely failures of engineering components
Functional requirements regarding material
properties
Design limitations/requirements:
1.
2.
3.

5.

Production
Economic and
Maintanence requirements

Material selection process

1- FUNTAMENTAL ASPECTS OF THE

DESIGN PROCEDURE
Every design effort is aimed at satisfying a need
It is impossible for a design to satisfiy all of the
requirements to the same degree.
Therefore, in order to be able to identify the areas at
comprimise, the requirements have to be arranged in
order of importance.
From the analysis of the need, a designer determines
the essential and desirable features of the design in
order of importance.
These features are usually expressed in the form of
functional requirements

After determining the functional requirements

(essental and desirable features) of the design, the
next step in the design work is to define the boundries
within which the solutions must be achieved .
A design has to be in compliance with certain
inevitable limitations.
These limitations as far as the material selection is
concerned , could be grouped as;
1)production limitations / requirements
2)economic limitations / requirements and
3)maintenance limitations / requirements
and they are called design limitations.

Depending upon the nature of the design,

it is sometimes the functional requirements and
some other times the design limitations

which dictate the properties that have to be sought in

materials considered for the design work at hand.
Based on these reasonings (functional requirements
and design limitations) the design procedure will take
the form of a flowchart seen in figure 2.1 with the
material selection in mind.

A) Functional Requirements:
Care must be exercised for demands which are truly
pertinent to the material properties, and those which
are related in some way to certain design features.
For example, load carrying capacity of a designed part
depends upon the strength of the material from which
it is produced and the geometrical parameters.
It is thus not axiomatic (absolute truth) that high
strength materials are necessaryl needed to achieve
the required strength of the part.
A designer can achieve this objective by a weaker
material but correspondingly larger dimensions:
provided of course, that there are no space or weight
restrictions.
when such restrictions are tight, the strength of the
material itself becomes correspondingly important.

Demands which originate from functional

requirements may concern
the mechanical properties of
the material such as the :
Strength
Stiffness
Resilience
Toughness
Dimension stability
Hardness

And the physical properties

of the material such as the:
coefficient of linear
expansion
thermal and electrical
conductruty
density etc.

B) DESIGN LIMITATIONS
These are the limitations to be taken into account
at all stages of the satisfaction of the need.
That means before, during and after design stage
and even during manufacture and use of the
product some parameters have to be taken into
account.
These limitations were:
1)production limitations / requirements
2)economic limitations / requirements and
3)maintenance limitations / requirements

production limitations / requirements:

are just as important and follow logically from the first.
A material which has been selected on the basis of its
functional merits must also be capabably produced .
This involves the designer in a consideration of a much
wider range of properties such as the ability of a
material to be;

machined
shaped
welded
formed
cast
etc

economic limitations / requirements :

The greatest limitation to any material is the
final cost of the element and is usually
composed of the;
raw material cost and
production costs excluding the overheads

maintanence limitations / requirements :

At the end of his design, the designer must also
consider the maintanence requirements
whether replacement or repair is envisaged,
and these limitations will depend upon the
size of the part
extent of possible damage
maintanence and repair facilities of the potential
customer
acceptable level of replacement or repair cost

As a result of all these it can be said that the

selection of material must be in the nature of a
comprimise for no material is capable of satisfiying
all of the demands to the same degree.
A large number of material which are similar in many
of their principle properties differ in those which are
thought to be of secondary importance.
This presents the engineer with the difficult problem
of selecting the most appropriate material from a
multitude of types, shapes and forms available to
him/her.

The selection of the material has such a great

influence on the design that in many cases,
the selection of a totally different material
would result in a new approach to the design.
The ever extending use of the moulding
plastics is an excellent and familar example,
The best example being the shapes acquired
by telephone in time.

An in-experienced designer, in some cases,

may feel helpless by this huge list of variables.
This is particulary true if the problem is
attacked in an un-planned manner.
However, even the in-experienced one may
come up with a satisfactory solution provided
that:
1) the definition of the problem is complete in
all respects and
2) the measures of value and the design
philosophy are carefully established.

Naturally, this process must be

supplemented by a good storehouse
(information unit) of knowledge concerning
the properties of the materials available in
textbooks, printed and electronic sources of
material manufacturers and others like:
Engineering materials textbooks
http://www.matweb.com/search/CompositionSearch.as
px
http://www.efunda.com/materials/materials_home/mate
rials.cfm
etc

2) FAILURE OF ENGINEERING COMPONENTS

( a phenomenon to be kept in mind by the design
engineers)
Failure not only cause costly efforts ,but may lead to
loss of many lives as in air plane crashed.
It can be said that an engineer designs for a given life
agains the possibility of failure in service.
Therefore an understanding of the relevant properties
of materials is very important to avoid failures.
It was stated that a design had to fulfil a number of
functional requirements.
When a design is no longer able to satisfy any of the
functional requirements, it is called a failure

Failure, on part of the material, may imply

either one or a combination of the followings:
1)excessive deformation
2)fracture
3)inordinate wear and
4)a deterioration in the properties of a material
upon which the design was based

2.1 excessive deformation

A designer gives an element a certain shape
and fixes the dimensions in order that it fulfils a
number of functions.
Depending upon the functional requirements the
accuracy of the geometry and dimensions may
be vital for the satisfactory performance of the
product.

Examples of excessive deformation are those;

a) the accuracy of the shape of a cam is important for
the exact positioning of the follower
b) an excessive deflection of a shaft impairs free
running in between the bearings.
c) the deformation of the critical parts of a machine tool
harms the accuracy of the machining operations.
It is evident from these examples that condition of
failure imposed by the excessive deformation need
not be on grass scale, such as the yielding or
buckling, they can even be in fractions of mms.

The failure by excessive deformation can also

be immediate or time dependent.
The time dependent deformation is termed as
creep and is very significant in high
temperature applications.

2.2 Fracture
Of the possible material failures ,fracture is
the most widely known type of failure.
If the failure impends following a large
deformation, such fractures are termed as
the ductile fracture.
The converse i.e, a fracture with no or very
little prior deformation is called the brittle
fracture.

Many material fail by fracture in those general

ways;
1sudden brittle fracture
2fatigue or progressive fracture
3time dependent, creep induced fracture
which is also called stress-rupture
The brittle fracture is not only experienced with
brittle material, the ductile materials may also
fail in brittle manner under certain conditions
(temperature rate and level of stress state
etc.)

2.3 wear
Wear is manifested by a loss of surface
material, either in a regular or irregular form.
It is the result of the action of abrassive or other
forces on the surface of material.
Wear is a complex subject because of the many
variables invoved in the process.
Among the varying factors that have a great
influence on wear are:
lubrication
condition of the surface (surface regularity smoothness)
the type of material with which the part is in contact
(relative hardnesses)

2.4 deterioration of property of the material

The most common examples of this type of failure are
caused by the environment in which the materials
operate.
The reaction of a chemical environment with the
materials is the most common example, the foremost
example being the;
corrosion and
oxidation.

In many instances apart from the loss of original

properties, such oxidation and corrosion attacks
cause loss of material too.
Liquid or gas absorption from the environment could
cause ductile to brittle transition, which is also
termed as embrittlement found frequently in welds.

It is reported that the fundamental factors

casually related to failure or shortening of
service life could be listed as:
Wrong or improper design
Improper selection of material
Improper Heat treatment
Improper Fabrication and
Improper machining or assembly

3. FUNCTIONAL DEMANDS REGARDING MATERIAL

PROPERTIES
For design purposes, the properties of materials can be
categorized as the general properties and the special
properties.
The general properties are the mechanical and physical
properties which are commonly employed in most
applications.
The special properties, such as the ;
electrical or thermal conductivity,
resistance to high tempearture ,
resisatance to chemical attack etc.

may be of secondary importance, or the primary reason

for choosing a particular material in some
applications.

The segretation (division) of required material

parameters as essential and desirable constitutes
a very important step in the selection of materials.
The failure modes and the essential functions of the
product have to be taken into consideration at this
step.
The implication of this division process is that, from
the list of available materials, those which do not
possess the essential properties are to be discarded
thus the engineer is left with the material alternatives
which he can compare on the basis of relative
merits.
However , this kind of screening list is complete only
after additional limitations (such as production,
economic and maintanence) are included.

4. THE DESIGN LIMITATIONS

Production
Economic and
Maintanence limitations /requirements

Producton requrements
A design is realized only after it is produced
A designer should then never look upon the production
phase as a job which is specifically the concern of
another group of engineers.
On the contrary, they must be aware of the fact that
production is carried out according to the drawings
prepared and the specifications laid down by the
designers.

The production group, though may give very

useful hints, can not achieve a quality or
performance which is not inherent in the
design.
It is in these respects that the selection of
material from which a component is to be
produced is a design decision which may have
considerable repercussions/effects throughout
the production and assembly phases.
The production requirements could be gathered
under the following sample headings for the
purposes of evaluation of materials;

Machinability
Formability
Castability
Suitability to compacting
Weldability
Heat treatability
Adaptability to special processes and forms
of protection
etc

Economc requrements
the design requirements concerning the cost are
quite simple;
keep them expensive as low as possible
without impairing the essential design features
The cost of a design comprises of several groups.
Among these, the production costs have the
prominent place, which is built up from;

material
labour and
capital costs

The materials chosen should be readily available.

if supply difficulties are encountered during production
expensive delays will occur.
If stock sizes and standart specifications are used
there will be very much less risk of supply shortage or
expenditure of effort in arranging supply.
adjustment of the dimensions whenever possible, to
available stock sizes is a good habit of design
engineering and effective use of production time.
For a given material the production costs depend upon
the
-amount of skilled labour in each operation
-the time of each operation
-the number of operation

In many instances the designer must

consider the apperance in choosing material,
for his choice effects the sales apperance of
a product to a large extent.
each material and surface finish used in a
product has a characteristic effect on the
apperance.
A designer must not therefore base his
decisions solely on the utilitarian principles.

Maintance requirements
the word maintance covers a broad list of
activities which are necesary but not directly
concered with the operation or use.
they generally concern:
--cleaning
--lubrication
--adjustment
--overhaul and repair of a damaged or worn
equipment

In principle, maintanence should be

considered in design as a user requirement
durability is one of the foremost
considerations as far as the user is
concerned.
It is necesary to minimize the risk of
consumer complaints about the service life
and service costs.
The maintance costs money and so do the
design alternatives to reduce the need for
maintance.

The general rule is that: expensive and

complicated parts must be designed so that
they can be maintaned for long service life
the frequency of maintanence is highly
dependent on the material used.
how often? And at what cost ? are two
inevitable design questions that must be
answered during the design phase
If replacement is necesary and if such
replacement are frequent, the cardinal rule is
that the part must be cheap.

5. MATERIAL SELECTION PROCESS

The selection process is divided into two main phases:
(1) Defining the problem and establishing the essential and
desirable requirements, and
(2) Searching for materials that best meet these requirements.
Considering the number of candidate materials, unless the
problem is of very special nature, an engineer is seemingly
faced with the problem of making the right choice out of
thousands of materials.
In practice however neither it is necessary to work with a huge
list, nor it is possible due to a number of constraints.
The main objective is to make sure that all material
alternatives are given fair consideration before the material for
a certain application is specified.

The first step of selection is to reduce

the number of candidate materials to a
manageable number.
Past experience and an investigation of
materials presently used for similar
designs, existing standards, codes or legal
requirements (if any) help to narrow the
selection to a manageable number.

The design philosophy determines the general trend of

design.
It varies from industry to industry, and even from company
to company within a country, and naturally from country
to country.
The best example of an overriding design philosophy is to
be found in the aircraft or space industry. Some are listed
below to pave the way to an illustrative discussion:
a) Strength must be combined with lightness,
b) Accuracy and design efficiency are more important than cost,
c) Life in operating hours is relatively limited,
d) Frequent and rigorous maintenance is ensured,
e) Wide extremes of service conditions must be taken into
account

In the selection of materials, insufficient points

of comprasion will lead to biased results and
misleading benefit analysis.
For example one must not be guided simply
by the cost per unit weight of the raw material
without considering how much material
actually required to produce a certain part.
Furthermore the final cost of the products
have to compared (an example for the relative
costs of materials for a product is given in
example 2.1 page 137.)

EXAMPLE: A cylindrical part has the length of 500 mm. One of the
material alternatives is the material "A" which can be stressed up to
15 kg/mm2, and the other is the material "B" which can be stressed
up to 25 kg/mm2. The costs of these materials are 100 TL/kg and
150 TL/kg respectively. Compare the costs of raw material for
these alternatives if the part is subjected on an axial load of 600 kg,
and the specific weight of both materials is equal to 7.8 g/cm3
A

50 cm

F
600
15
A
A

F
600
25
A
A

AA=40mm2

AB=24mm2

2
2
2 2
2 2

15
kgkg
/ mm

25
kgkg
/ mm
15
/ mm
25
/ mm

3 33
V V 0.04.x450
cmcm
x50 2020

Weight= 20cm3x7.8 gr/cm3=156gr

CostA=0.156 kg x 100 TL=15.6 TL/part

3 33
V V
0.24
x50
12
cmcm
0.24
x50
12

Weight= 12cm3x7.8 gr/cm3=93.6gr

CostB=0.0936 kg x 150 TL=14.04 TL/part

Though the material B s more expensive per unit weight, the part produced from
thls material turns out to be cheaper

Considering the general objectives of material selection, the answers to the

following questions will provide guidance to the readers who do not have
enough experience in this field.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

What are the essential design requirements?

Are all of these requirements truely essential?
Can you list them in the order of importance?
What material parameters are truely essential to fulfil these
requirements?
Are all of the desirable material properties necessary?
Which desirable material properties contribute value to the design?
What are the available production facilities?
Are there any essential or desirable design requirements, or material
properties which are conflicting with the available production facilities?
Do these attributes exist in similar designs as well?
Wl the cost of material be proportionate to its merits?
Is the overall cost justifiable?
Can there be a better material for intended use?
Can a lower cost material be substituted?
Can t be supplied for less?

It must be remembered that the essential

properties for materials usulaly stem from;
1-service conditions
2-failure criteria
3-standart or legal requirements
4-special functional requirements of the
part/product
5-special aspect of the production

The establishment of the measures of value for selection of

materials begins with a listing of desirable attributes of the
materials and continues to the establishment of relative
values.
In other words, a designer asks the simple question, "What
should be the desirable properties of the candidate
materials, and how important is each and everyone of
these desirable features?".
It is not usually a difficult matter to determine the essential
properties to be considered.
However, it does take some time to decide on the desirable
properties.
A more difficult exercise is to determine the relative order of
importance and the evaluation of the degree of importance.

There are some methods

for determination of material properties and also
for proper/correct material selections

in engineering applications.
Square matrix method is used to determine the
order of the material properties (essential & desirable)
to be used in selection of material.

Performance rating method is used to select the

proper material for the application in hand

Square matrix method

The process of determination of material properties is
considerably facilitated by drawing a matrix of
comparisons which makes it possible to compare
the desirable properties in pairs.
This method provides an undeniable simplification for
it is relatively easy to decide which is the more
important of two properties.
By going through all pairs it then becomes more
obvious which properties are important and those
which are less important.
A matrix of comparisons provides a
representation of the various judgements.

pictorial

In order to draw a matrix, the desirable material properties must be listed and given
a code number, or some form of identification.
Suppose that there are five desirable properties which are relevant and important to
the success of the project such as
(1) cost of raw material, (2) resistance to wear, (3) castability, (4) machinability,
and (5) heat conductivity,
A square matrix may then be drawn up with the attributes listed as shown in Fig. 2.2.
This listing is not in the order of importance.
Cost

1
1

2
3
4
5

Wea
r

Castability

Machinability

Heat
Conductivity

1
1

XX

XX

XX

XX

XX

6X

4X

5X

3X

Cost

Wea
r

Castability Machina
bility

2X
Heat
Conductivity

All pairs of attributes are

compared for relative importance
starting with 1, such as 1-2, 1-3,
1-4, 1-5, 2-1, 2-3 and so on.
If the property 1 is more important
than 2, a XX mark is entered in
column 1 row 2.
It may happen that it is not
possible to make a decision in
favour of a certain property. In
such cases, an X mark is entered
to show an indecision.

The matrix may then be filled out as illustrated. After all comparisons have been
made, the number of marks made in each column are added.
Note,that, in the above example, when 2 is compared against 1, no mark is
entered in column 2 row 1 for the decision was in favour of 1,
However, if there exists an indecision on which of the merits is more important,
such as that between 1 and 3, an X is entered in both the column 1 row 3 and the
column 3 row 1.
Here it is seen that property 1 is the most desirable one while property 3 is the
second desirable, and then comes properties 2, 4 and 5

Though the square matrix yields the ranking order of importance

of the desirable properties, in practice, the "level of desirability"
of a certain merit cannot simply be established either by the
corresponding number of Xs, or by the order.
Consequently, a designer must determine how much
importance should be attached to each merit (Value factor C).
For instance, cost of raw material is only 6/5 times more
important than castability, by counting simply the Xs.
This may not be the exact mathematical equivalent of the actual
importance. A designer must then assign certain numerical
values which provide a scale for comparison.
For the sake of an example, the following scale maybe devised:
5
4
3
2
1

Most desirable
Highly desirable
Desirable
Slightly desirable
Least desirable.

The "level of desirability" should be established after a very

careful study of the requirements in the light of the design
philosophy.
For instance, one may just as well assign 10 rather than 5
to "most desirable" and 7 rather than 4 to "highly
desirable".
It all depends on how much importance should be attached
to each attribute by the designer.
A set consisting of the numbers 10, 8, 5, 3, and 1 is quite
frequently employed for measure values Cs because of
its close approximation to a linear scale.
Performance factors Gs are also to be used for further
steps of the material selection. This factor tells you
how good this material performs for the required
property. These values are also determined by the
designer based on information sources and past
experience.

Performance rating method

Ci
Level of
importance,
times X

Measure
Value scale
linearized

Gi

CiGi

Performance Factor
(how good does this
material perform?)

Ranking

Cost

10

40

50

Castability

32

32

Wear

16

24

Machinability

15

15

Heat
conductivity

12

Ci 34

115

130

Ci
Level of
importance

Measure
Value

Gi

CiGi

Performance
Factor

Ranking

Cost

10

40

50

Castability

32

32

Wear

16

24

Machinability

15

15

Heat
treatability

12

115

130

C i .Gi 115
RA

3.38
34
i 1 C i
n

C i .Gi 130
RB

3.82
34
i 1 C i
n

Ci 34

When the performance rating, R, of all candidate

materials are determined, the designer can
specify the highest ranking material for the
design.

Obviously, a systematic and objective selection is provided

by the above method on the condition that the values of C
and G are established in an unbiased manner.
A reasonable amount of difficulty may be experienced in
translating the design considerations to material
parameters.
However, a great difficulty is rather plausable for it would be
an indication of the fact that the definition of the design
problem is incomplete, and that it is being attempted to be
solved in a haphazard manner.
Just think about the similarity of this method to the method
of calculation of your total credit in a term:
Course credits(values C) multiplied by the course
grades(performance factors G) and then summed (CG)
and then summation is divided by the total course credits in
a term to find your performance rating (R= CG/ C)

A systematic material selection process consists of the following steps:

1. Check if there are existing standards, codes or legal requirements binding the
selection of material.
2. Make a thorough functional analysis of the part and determine the functional
requirements.
3. Make a failure analysis and determine in how many ways the designed machine
part can fail to fulfil these functions.
4. Determine the essential material parameters.
5. Establish the measures of value and the performance factors.
6. Analyse similar designs and determine the list of materials that can be used,
paying attention to the design philosophy.
7. Screen all candidate materials and discard those which do not possess the
essential properties. A "backward" method of selection would be to look
for materials which possess the essential properties.
8. Assign a performance factor to each of the pertinent properties of the candidate materials depending upon how closely it meets the desirable material
properties.
9. Perform the performance rating process to determine the highest performing
material for the design (Perform equation 2.1 for each material).
If the systematic selection technique is right in concept and execution, then the
material with the highest performance rating is the optimum material.

A good designer is always wise and open to the

design practice around him/her with the capacity of
making the right reductions.
A designer must always pay the due tribute to
his/her rival engineers.
If some of the attributes which he/she watches as
essential or highly desirable, are missing in other
rival designs, he/she should feel free to ask could
I be wrong? Will it be better to benefit from the
experience of others.