An Introductory Teaching Resource for Materials Science and Engineering

The academic areas of Materials Science and Materials Engineering have different emphasis at different Universities. Some would argue that the former is more focused on understanding materials (why) while the latter is more focused on making use of them (how). Another way of looking at these areas is that they emphasize the microscopic (or even nanoscopic) aspects of materials or the macroscopic aspects, respectively. Together, they constitute an important part of many engineering programs and may therefore be treated jointly as Materials Science and Engineering. In this paper, we have investigated a number of curricula and syllabi to identify a list of topics/concepts that appear central to the learning objectives of Materials Science and Engineering. Among the top candidates were: characteristic material properties of the main material groups, modification of microstructure by various (thermal/mechanical) processes, binary phase diagrams, micrographs and materials characterization and testing. Working in a project involving students of engineering and Materials Science, databases were designed containing facts and visual information for the purpose of introductory materials teaching. A non-exhaustive review of existing teaching resources for these areas reveal that many are highly specialized on one topic (e.g., crystallography) or one group of materials (e.g., metals). We are therefore exploring the ways to integrate several of the core themes mentioned in the list above, to facilitate assignments, projects or self-directed studies in Materials Science and Engineering. A standard materials selection software package was used as a starting point, since it offered comprehensive material property databases and the possibility to add tailor-made data records and entire data tables. Furthermore, links between, e.g., heat treatments, phase diagrams and micrographs can be set up. In this paper, we report on an initial review of data compilations and tools, the results of a survey and focus groups responding to an explorative version of a database. We aim to share our findings over the materials community hoping to get feed-back and inspire educational ideas.