Study Overseas

I have been set the onerous task of helping you, a potential student, on choosing a field of study. This is a decision that will influence the rest of life and so should not be taken lightly. It is not possible to predict what specific skills will be in demand over your 40 to 50 year working life, so may I suggest you choose a "Core" rather than a specialist skill and be flexible as opportunities emerge.

Materials Science is at the centre of almost all that we do and possess. We live in a society in which we expect year on year improvement in the products we buy and our overall standard of living. At the same time we have expectations of increased safety and reliability, less pollution and more energy efficiency. In all these areas Material Science is either the prime driver or in very close support of another technology.

It is worth mentioning a few examples, as very often the reason for the improvement is not obvious to the user:

Cars are more economic, quieter, accelerate better and much more reliable than twenty years ago. Just a few of the reasons are stronger steels, the introduction of composite materials, higher temperature materials in engines, printed circuit boards, materials that are tailored to behave dynamically in crashes and to dampen vibrations.

We can now fly with unprecedented safety and reliability to almost anywhere in the world for less than the average UK weekly wage. This is due almost entirely to better materials, without which it would not be possible to make bigger and more economic aircraft. This is a good example of the rather simplistic "Cubed / Squared Law". If one considers the task of building an aircraft of twice the size of its predecessor one could predict, using the same design and materials, its weight to increase by 8 (= 23 ) times. However the cross sectional area of the undercarriage legs will increase only by 4 (= 22 ) and the stress in the undercarriage will double. Material Science has, over the last few decades, provided the solution to this. Firstly directly by producing better steels for the undercarriage leg but more importantly by developing composite materials that have allowed designers to break away from the "cubed" part of the Law. Nobody, since Howard Hughes has tried to double the size of aircraft in one step. However if you compare a De Havilland Comet with the Airbus A380 that is just about what we have achieved in a few decades.

The other unnoticed improvement in aircraft is in the engines. These deliver much higher thrusts, at lighter weight and using less fuel. This is attributable to a 16 extent to higher operating temperatures and more complex blade profiles, both of which have only been possible due to better materials and processes. At the same time reliability has been raised to a level that most of the aircraft flying the Atlantic have only two engines.

Bridges are having their strength increase, to take more and heavier lorries; very often by bonding carbon fibre laminates to the existing steel reinforced concrete structures. (In themselves an earlier example of a "Composite" material)

Wind turbines blades are continuing to get bigger and this is increasing the stresses in the blades and hence the requirements for the materials used. Progressively Glass and Carbon woven into Non-Crimped Fabrics and impregnated by Resin Infusion Processes are replacing the Wood and Wet lay-up composites currently used by many producers.

What direction will Material Science take in the future? The current trend of reducing scale and increased complexity will accelerate. In the 1950's load bearing materials were almost all metals, which were assumed to be homogeneous with only minor directional variations in forgings and rolled plate. One occasionally looked at the grain structures in an optical microscope but only if one had an unexpected failure.

Today it is normal to use carbon and glass fibres, in a polymer matrix to design structures where strength and stiffness can be independently tuned in three directions. The helicopter rotor blade is a good example. Here bending stiffness in two directions plus torsional stiffness have to be independently tuned to complex dynamic requirements, in a structure that strong enough to survive 25 years of military operations, in rain and sand with the occasional lightening strike. This is achieved with a complex mixture glass and carbon fibres, laid at difference angles, supplemented with bonded titanium

For tomorrow one can see an increase in the number of materials being used in complex combinations. In particularly the use of "Surface Science" to add thin layers of critical materials to overcome weakness in the bulk structure, such as wear and erosion resistance or electrical and chemical properties. One can envisage structures with several different fibre types, with regional gradation between rigid and elastomeric matrices and made to meet diverse requirements, by depositing layers a few microns thick of very exotic elements. Electron beams, controlled to optimise the cure process in different areas of the same part, may then cure the structure. The challenge will not only be to design and make such structures but to develop the methods to certify and qualify the materials used.

The other area for the future is the really small-scale developments with Nano Fibres only a few nanometers in size, where the limits will be the size of molecules and our ability to see and manipulate at this scale. My difficulty of perceiving how much of this will be applied to real products is matched by my conviction that progress will be rapid and lead to unexpected opportunities. There are excellent opportunities here for newly qualified Materials Scientists as most of the current practitioners, such as myself, are very ignorant of the technologies in this field.

The most important advantage of joining the Materials Science community is not just the Technology but the people whom you will meet, who will help you and whom you will help. I would like to suggest that you join SAMPE (Society for the Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering). It is an international group of Material Scientists and Engineers, who have helped me and given me many enjoyable opportunities. It strongly supports the Student Community with events in Europe and the USA. Prizes of free attendance at the European and US conferences are given to the best students.

Student fees are only 20 Euro per year, if you wish to receive details, please contact:

Ir. Adrie Kwakernaak
Uranusstrat 3
NL-1431 XH Aalsmeer
The Netherlands

Email: akwakernaak@compuserve.com
Or visit our Website: http://www.sampe.com

Finally, whatever you finally select as your course of study you should have too objectives:

1. Make a significant contribution to the improvement of the products and society with which you will work.
2. Have fun

I believe that Materials Science and Engineering offers you the opportunity to do both

Author:

Bob Griffiths
Vice President, SAMPE Europe.

Email:bobgriffiths@btinternet.com