Syllabus Material Science, AMIE

MATERIAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING (AD 302)

Group A

Introduction to materials:
Metal and alloys, ceramics, polymers and semiconducting materials—introduction and application as engineering materials.

Defects in solids:
Point, line and surface defects. Diffusion in solids.

Phase diagrams: Monocomponent and binary systems, non-equilibrium system, phase diagram and application in crystalline and non-crystalline solids.

Mechanical properties: Tensile strength, yield strength, elastic and viscoelastic properties, creep, stress relaxation and impact. Fracture behaviour. Ductile fracture, Griffith theory, effect of heat treatment and temperature on properties of metals.

Deformation of metals: Elastic and plastic deformation, slip, twin, dislocation theory, critical resolved shear stress, deformation in polycrystalline materials, season cracking, Bachinger's effect, strengthing mechanics, work hardening recovery, crystallisation and grain growth, cold and hot working.

Group B

Heat treatment:
Iron-carbon system. Annealing, normalising, hardening, critical cooling rate, hardenability, age hardening, surface hardening, tempering.

Thermal properties: High temperature materials, materials for cryogenic application, thermally insulating materials. (Specific heat, thermal conductivity, thermal expansion).

Ceramic materials and polymers:
Silicon structures, polymerism fraction in glass, electrical properties of ceramic phases, rocks, building stones, refractories.

Polymerisation mechanism:
structural properties of polymer, thermoplastics, thermosets, elastomer, resins, composites, particle and fibre reinforced composite. Composite material including nano material.

Electronic properties:
Magnetism, dimagnetism, paramagnetism, ferromagnetism, magnetic energy, zone theory of solids, zones in conductors and insulators.

Recommended Books  
      □ L A Vanblack. Elements of Material Science and Engineering. Addison-Wesley (Indian edition).  
      □ V Raghavan. Material Science and Engineering. Prentice-Hall of India (P) Ltd, New Delhi.


The above syllabus is taken from "http://trimurtuluamie.wetpaint.com/page/AMIE+-+SECTION++A++SYLLABUS". Please do refer to the same for further details

Chapter 03, Phase Diagrams

Hello Everyone,

     After a week or so spent lethargically, I am back to study. So I intend to study about "Phase diagrams". I was going through the Syllabus the other day and felt that this chapter is cool. What do we need to cover in this chapter??? As per me the following are must, please do let me know if I am missing something here

• Phases & micro-structure's basic concepts 
• Solubility and limitations
• Mono-component and binary systems
• Non-equilibrium system
• Phase diagram and. application in crystalline and non-crystalline solids.
•  Lever rule and applications
• Effects of phases on Mechanical properties 

    Hello Everyone again, After starting the real study ( i.e. the books and such ) the above given points are not ample as per me. So I am updating a list of topics that should be studied for clearing all questions which may arise from this topic:

• Introduction to phases, phase diagrams & need for studying the same
• Mono-component systems, Gibbs phase rule & applications
• Binary phase diagrams, triple points, invariant points
• Isomorphic systems, applications of phase diagrams (lever rule)
• Non - equilibrium solidification of alloys, problems related to cooling
• Alloy Systems (Binary Eutectoid, Hypo-Eutectoid plain carbon steels, Hyper-Eutectiod plain carbon steels )
• Non - crystalline solids and phases in them

with warm regards

AllMyPosts

What is the best way to head with Material Science??

Hello Everyone,

    To those who are new, this is a blog to blog about my preparation & plans to crack the hell out of section A of AMIE. I started with the subject MATERIAL SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING. 

    This subject is little tough for the simple reason that I am into computer science after my high school and am not at all interested in this topic. So its little difficult for me to choose the right topic & to keep me interested. I am done with two chapters viz Introduction to Material Science & Introduction to point defects. 

    So please do suggest me some good study plan. Should I just go forward and complete the topics in syllabus in lexical order / order given in syllabus or should I choose some good chapter? If later, what are the good chapters in the syllabus?

    Please do enlighten me on the same.

with warm regards

allmyposts

What is the most fetching topic in Material Science??

Hello Everyone,

    I was wondering about what is the most fetching topic in Material Science. I was going through the old question papers sometime back. I find a pattern when it comes to questions from some chapters like burgers vector, APF of crystal,... I also find that the pattern is not very strong in itself.

    So tell me which topic / chapter is really fetching in material Science of section A of AMIE exams?

Cool PPT on Crystal Defects

I have found a cool ppt on Crystal Defects. Please do go through the same.

Please note, the ppt is not mine. I found it floating on the web and don't claim any copyright of the same. I am sorry that I couldn't post the source as I forgot the same.

No. Of Atoms in Zinc Unit Cell

I have been going through the question papers again. I found a rather interesting question viz "Calculate the no. of atoms in zinc unit cell?"

First some basics about Calculation of Number of Particles per Unit Cell of a Cubic Crystal System.

Keeping the following points in mind we can calculate the number of atoms in a unit cell.

• An atom at the corner is shared by eight unit cells. Hence an atom at the corner contributes 1/8 to the unit cell

• An atom at the face is a shared by two unit cells

Contribution of each atom on the face is 1/2 to the unit cell.

• An atom within the body of the unit cell is shared by no other unit cell

Contribution of each atom within the body is 1 to the unit cell.

• An atom present on the edge is shared by four unit cells

Contribution of each atom on the edge is 1/4 to the unit cell.

By applying these rules, we can calculate the number of atoms in the different cubic unit cells of monoatomic substances.

(The above concepts are taken from tutorvista.com. Please refer to them from more info)

Now I intend to answer this question in this post as I find it little cool. Zinc is having HCP structure as per Material Science and Engineering by Raghavan. A cool image showing the HCP structure is here:

    It is clear from the image that 3 atoms are inside the body of the HCP unit structure. So the count of atoms is 3 as of now.  

    It is clear from the image that the hexagonal faces have one atom each. But each such atom is shared by two HCP units equally. Hence the count of atoms comes to "4" here.

   Now, the atoms at the twelve points ( hexagonal edges on top and bottom ) make another two atoms. Hence count is 6 totally. 

    A simple explaination of the same given at answers.com is given below. Please do refer to the same.

   

    There are 6 atoms in the hcp unit cell. The hex shape has six atoms at the points that are direct translations of each other making 1 atom for the top hex and one atom for the bottom hex. That's 2. The atom in the center of the top and center of the bottom are translations giving 1 more. That's 3. Then there are 3 atoms in the middle region of each cell bringing the total to 6

Old Questions. Material Science. Chap. 02.

    I understand that AMIE is tough and its not enough to just read the study material. So I decided to scan through the old question papers. As of now I am studying the second chapter ( defects in crystals ). So I segregated the questions in this chapter for the benefit of all. Please do go through them and decide on what all topics to be studied for the exams.

with warm regards

Abhishek Boinapalli

Atomic Packing Factor

         In crystallography, atomic packing factor (APF) or packing fraction is the fraction of volume in a crystal structure that is occupied by atoms. It is dimensionless and always less than unity. For practical purposes, the APF of a crystal structure is determined by assuming that atoms are rigid spheres. The radius of the spheres is taken to be the maximal value such that the atoms do not overlap. For one-component crystals (those that contain only one type of atom), the APF is represented mathematically by

where N_atoms is the number of atoms in the unit cell, V_atom is the volume of an atom, and V_{unit cell} is the volume occupied by the unit cell. It can be proven mathematically that for one-component structures, the most dense arrangement of atoms has an APF of about 0.74. In reality, this number can be higher due to specific intermolecular factors. For multiple-component structures, the APF can exceed 0.74.

Worked out example

Body-centered cubic crystal structure

BCC structure

       The primitive unit cell for the body-centered cubic (BCC) crystal structure contains nine atoms: one on each corner of the cube and one atom in the center. Because the volume of each corner atom is shared between adjacent cells, each BCC cell contains two atoms.

Each corner atom touches the center atom. A line that is drawn from one corner of the cube through the center and to the other corner passes through 4r, where r is the radius of an atom. By geometry, the length of the diagonal is a√3. Therefore, the length of each side of the BCC structure can be related to the radius of the atom by

     Knowing this and the formula for the volume of a sphere((4 / 3)pi r³), it becomes possible to calculate the APF as follows:

  The above information is taken from Wikipedia. Please do refer to the same for further info.

 with warm regards

allmyposts

Diffusion In Solids

I was studying about diffusion in solids. The simplest definition of diffusion is "movement of atoms in solids under thermal energy and a gradient" is called diffusion. Where the gradient can be concentration or Electric / Magnetic field ...

This is relatively simple topic and can be easily understood. But the topic is a little important as questions regarding time taken for carburization are repeatedly asked in the question papers.

The important topics to study include:

• Diffusion mechanisms (vacency, interstitial ..)
• Rate of diffusion in steady state and non steady state (Ficks first law and second law)
• Kirkendall effect

Perfect resource for this topic is study material by IEI. But the book by Raghavan is also very very good. The book is available here

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.

with warm regards

allmyposts

Line defects and Surface defects

    Yeah, I was reading about these topics only from last Saturday. Please head to my advice, this is the wrong way of spending your weekend. So basically there is a lot to study, but everything is quite easy to understand. Video tutorials can be of great help in this issue, but alas, I couldn't surf for the same till now. I shall update the same here at the earliest.

What all needs to be covered:

1. What are line defects, what are dislocations? ( both are same basically )
2. Types of line defects viz screw dislocation & edge dislocation.
3. How to find out the burgers vector for a given defect. What is burgers circuit, how to find out the direction of burgers vector. What is Burgers Vector?
4. What are various types of surface defects? 
5. Study about grain boundary and interface, tilt boundary, twinning, stacking faults & such.

Note:

• Twinning is important concept as the same is asked many many times in the old question papers.
• For simple definitions of defects and classification please refer to material science by RS Khurmi & RS Sedha 
• For brief and clear cut explanation please refer to the  study material provided by AMIE

Resources:

• A good pdf which helps to visualize the dislocations is here
• A good image to help visualize point defects is here
• Another point defect explanation here

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.

with warm regards

allmyposts

Point Defects in Crystals

One more hard day of studying. So I was going through point defects in crystals. Before reading about point defects please understand what crystals are and why you need to study their internal structures and how defects effect the structure sensitive properties of the material

This stuff is really interesting in itself. You gotta study a lot from vacancy, interstitial defects, constitutional impurity, Schotty defect, Frenkel defect and all such. 

Also study what enthalpy of formation is? How to calculate the same? The effects of defects on the bonds between atoms, on the stress and strain and elasticity ....

The material science & Engineer by Raghavan &  Material Science by RS Khurmi & RS Sedha are good books for the same. I am following the later

The basics of point defects in crystals can be summarzied as follows:

• Vacancy – missing atom at a certain crystal lattice position; 
• Interstitial impurity atom – extra impurity atom in an interstitial position
• Self-interstitial atom – extra atom in an interstitial position; 
• Substitution impurity atom – impurity atom, substituting an atom in crystal lattice; 
•  Frenkel defect – extra self-interstitial atom, responsible for the vacancy nearby.

The above summary is taken from www.substech.com. Please refer to them for further info. 


A lot more stuff has to be studied regarding effects of defects in the crystal, the calculation of equilibrium concentration of vacancies, drawing miller indices for given plane and for given crystal direction and all such.... Geez will this ever end???


Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.

with warm regards

allmyposts

Tips to crack Material Science

Tips to crack Material Science

I heard many student saying that 'Material Science is tough subject ' up to some level it is correct but it is not correct that Material science is a tough subject . if you are feeling " Material Science is tough" then i am sure about that your basic concept are not clear. many student are loosing their interest in Material Science because of rumor about Material Science.

One thing i want to say strictly
" there is neither any subject which is tough nor any subject which is easy, toughness or easiness of any subject is depend upon your interest in that subject and how much basic concept you have regarding that subject."


Some effective method of study for Material Science are given below.

1. First remove the thing from your mind that is  Material Science is tough subject  . first clear your basic concept about Material Science like atomic structure, bonding of atoms, etc. because without a strong base you can not build anything.

2.Rather than concentrating on big topic like Heat Treatment , mechanical proprities cover short and easy topic like Electronic proprieties, Magnetism, Polymer, Ceramic etc.if you complete this topic first then psychologically it will boost your confidence regarding Material Science.

3. Whatever topic you are studying for Material Science do it perfectly do not leave anything for option because "Do less but Do perfect" because in AMIE there is no limit of depth of syllabus of a subject .4.When you completing one topic and going to start another topic must see previous topic at a glance . repeat this process for next topic. apply this process not only for material science but also for other subjects.

5. when you complete any topic after that try to write it's summery and explain that topic to yourself as considering yourself as a student as well as teacher.

the above article is taken from grade-amie.blogspot.com. Please refer to them for many more such articles.

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.

with warm regards

allmyposts

Question Papers

Hello Everyone,




I was surfing around on the web and came across these old question papers of AMIE. Please do go through the same.
http://hotfile.com/dl/82063184/a3a06f9/amie_Question_papers_SEC-A_2004-2008.zip.html




The simple way to get the most out of question papers is:

1. Read question papers, group questions belonging to each chapter. This will give you idea about the topics to be covered.
2. Please attempt the old questions and try to answer them all. It gives you both confidence and also lets you know your ability
3. Take a mock test with the help of timer, i.e. try to complete answering the questions in the given time limit. This will help you to maintain calm @ exams

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.


with warm regards
allmyposts

Lots of PPT's on Material Science

Hello Everyone,




     I was surfing for notes on material science on the web. I found that the blog "http://engineeringppt.blogspot.com " has some cool notes on the same. They are in form of ppt's and the download link is here:


http://hotfile.com/dl/82061918/8ee4b55/four.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/82061930/00d0f4b/one.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/82062021/ccc5e6e/three.rar.html
http://hotfile.com/dl/82062144/e933a84/two.rar.html


As per them, the slides are all public now "Wiley/Penn State Lect. Notes for Callister's 6th ed. (ppt). These lectures notes are publicly available.

"




Please do use these slides and let me know how you guys feel.

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.




with warm regards
allmyposts

Status Chap 02

Hello Everyone, 

    Good Day to you all, I was little lazy yesterday. I did not read a single new topic also yesterday. I was making notes of all the topics which I was studied. I am sure making notes is good, as I read from hell lot of sources. I need to study about them all, make and store points at one place for future reference. So its good. Know more about study skills here by buying the book Effective Study Skills: Step-by-Step System to Achieve Student Success at amazon.

    So nothing new today. Just gonna edit old posts to ensure that they are of good quality. 

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.

with warm regards

allmyposts

Simple, Body Centered & Face Centered Cubic Systems

The three Bravais lattices which form cubic crystal systems are

Simple cubic (P)

Body-centered cubic (I)

Face-centered cubic (F)

The simple cubic system (P) consists of one lattice point on each corner of the cube. Each atom at the lattice points is then shared equally between eight adjacent cubes, and the unit cell therefore contains in total one atom (¹⁄₈ × 8).
The body-centered cubic system (I) has one lattice point in the center of the unit cell in addition to the eight corner points. It has a net total of 2 lattice points per unit cell (¹⁄₈ × 8 + 1).
The face-centered cubic system (F) has lattice points on the faces of the cube, that each gives exactly one half contribution, in addition to the corner lattice points, giving a total of 4 atoms per unit cell (¹⁄₈ × 8 from the corners plus ¹⁄₂× 6 from the faces).
Attempting to create a C-centered cubic crystal system (i.e., putting an extra lattice point in the center of each horizontal face) would result in a simple tetragonal Bravais lattice.


All the above information is taken from Wikipedia. Please refer to Wikipedia for more info.  

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.


with warm regards
AllMyPosts

Material Science & Engineering By Raghavan

Crystal Systems. Bravias Lattices.

Crystal system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -

Miller Index

Miller indices are a notation system in crystallography for planes and directions in crystal (Bravais) lattices.

In particular, a family of lattice planes is determined by three integers ℓ, m, and n, the Miller indices. They are written (hkl), and each index denotes a plane orthogonal to a direction (h, k, l) in the basis of the reciprocal lattice vectors. By convention, negative integers are written with a bar, as in 3 for −3. The integers are usually written in lowest terms, i.e. their greatest common divisor should be 1. Miller index 100 represents a plane orthogonal to direction ℓ; index 010 represents a plane orthogonal to direction m, and index 001 represents a plane orthogonal to n.

There are also several related notations

• the notation {ℓmn} denotes the set of all planes that are equivalent to (ℓmn) by the symmetry of the lattice.

In the context of crystal directions (not planes), the corresponding notations are:

• [ℓmn], with square instead of round brackets, denotes a direction in the basis of the direct lattice vectors instead of the reciprocal lattice; and
• similarly, the notation 〈hkl〉 denotes the set of all directions that are equivalent to [ℓmn] by symmetry.

Miller indices were introduced in 1839 by the British mineralogist William Hallowes Miller. The method was also historically known as the Millerian system, and the indices as Millerian, although this is now rare.

The precise meaning of this notation depends upon a choice of lattice vectors for the crystal, as described below. Usually, three primitive lattice vectors are used. However, for cubic crystal systems, the cubic lattice vectors are used even when they are not primitive (e.g., as in body-centered and face-centered crystals).

The above information is taken from Wikipedia. Please refer to Wikipedia for better information. 

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.

allmyposts

Prerequisites for understanding defects in crystals

    Hello EveryOne, So about crystal defects, I am not sure if I can complete the chapter by this weekend or not. I had to go through a lot of old question papers to clearly understand what all must be studied to complete the portion of this chapter. All I can tell you is, the notes from study material is not sufficient at all. 

    The prerequisites  for studying the material in the study material are as follows as per me:

1. What are crystalline structures? What is lattice? What is unit cell?
2. Study about the 7 crystal systems. Study about the 14 Bravias lattices
3. Understand the concept of Miller indices. Find miller indice for a given plane. Sketch a plane when miller indices are given.
4. Understand about crystal directions. Find crystal directions when miller indices are given.
5. Find out the relation between radius of atom and parameter of lattice in a Bravias lattice. Find out the no. of atoms in a given lattice. Find out the no. of atoms in sq. mm. of cube
6. Find out Atomic Packing Factor. Know how to calculate the density of cube using Avagordo's Number.

    Yeah, I must say I made some progress in this chapter anyway. I know a little about everything I listed above and practiced some problems on the same.

     A note about questions from these topics in old papers. The questions are given here. Do try to solve them.

1. Calculate volume of FCC unit cell in terms of atomic radius. (W-05)
2. Show that Atomic Packing Factor of FCC unit cell is greater than the Atomic Packing Factor of BCC unit cell. (W-05)
3. Calculate the Atomic Packing Factor of a FCC unit cell. (W-06)
4. If lattice parameter of alpha iron is 286 pm, find out the atomic radius (W-06).

    There is a lot more to study including types of defects and the effects of these defects on the structure intensive properties of crystalline materials .... Everything happens at a pace. All we can do is, improve the pace. Thats what I intend to do this time.

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.

Shall keep you posted

with warm regards

allmyposts

Chap. 02. Defects in Crystals.

   Horrible chapter as per me. Yeah, you read it well, Its horrible I say. I have read the syllabus @ study material provided. It speaks of all types of defects including point defects, line defects, surface defects and volume defects. Also speaks of lot of other stuff like further classifications in the defects and such.

    I am of opinion that one should first read the internals of crystal and crystal structures, bravias crystals, Atomic Packing Factor, Space lattice stuff and such. APF is important and seems to have appeared in the exams a lot of times. I think the book Material Science by RS Khurmi & RS Sedha is really cool for this purpose. But geez its such a pain to study the same. Hard stuff regarding Simple lattice, Body Centered Lattice , FCC, .. volumes, Avagordo's numbers volumes and masses of atoms and all such stuff.

     Added to that I still couldn't start the actual topic of defects still.Should see but its absorbing to study the same. I will keep you posted about my developments. 

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.

with warm regards

allmyposts

Chap 1. Intro to Material Science and Engineering.

    An important chapter I guess, not from exam point of view, but at least good knowledge of the subject and its necessity is necessary to keep you going forward. The study material is really good for telling you the importance but Vanblack puts it in a much better way saying "Engineers adapt materials and energy to society's needs". Cool way right.

    So basically we need to learn the following topics in this chapter as per me

1. Definition and importance of the subject
2. What are Engineering materials. Should be able to write short notes on the types of materials listed viz Metals and alloys, Polymers, Ceramics, Composites, Bio materials,.. 
3. Must be able to tell examples of each of above type and also justify the same.

    The prospects of making marks from this chapter are really bleak. I went through 6 or 7 old question papers only to find one question from this chapter. The question too was cool saying " Classify the materials given below and write reasons." The materials in question are RCC, Wood, Rubber, Cast Iron, Brick. Pretty simple.

    But there is something confusing, what is concrete?? I mean is it a ceramic or a composite. Everywhere ( on web or in text books ) I find that its a composite but in the study material provided by AMIE, it is named as ceramic. Should look into this point.

     I am done with this chapter by 7 / 11 / 2010. This is cool stuff man.

     Some cool links:

1. Intro to Material Science
2. Notes on Material Science 

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.

with warm regards

allmyposts

My Plan for Material Science and Engineering

               Simple plan to crack the hell out of section A of AMIE. Everyday preparation for say about an hour. 45 days per subject. Additional 2 hours on weekends.

               I am choosing Material Science and Engineering as my first subject. Target to complete is "22 Dec 210". I shall keep you all updated on my progress.

              I have secured my copies of "Study material on Material Science and Engineering" provided by AMIE,  "Material Science and Engineering" by Raghavan from PHI, "Elements of Material Science and Engineering" by LA Vanblack. Along with some old question papers from net.

Don't forget to grab a copy of Material Science and Engineering book, which is essential for preparing for AMIE, Material Science.

with warm regards

allmyposts