Instructor:
Oleg Rubel
Room: JHE 359
Tel: +1-905-525-9140, ext. 24094
E-Mail: rubelo@mcmaster.ca
URL: http://olegrubel.mcmaster.ca

Teaching Assistants:

Course description
This course will examine how the microstructure of a material determines its mechanical
behaviour. The topics covered will include elastic and plastic deformation, creep, fatigue
and fracture of engineering materials. Materials selection will also be discussed.

Learning Outcomes
- Gain practical experience in measurement and quantification of mechanical properties.
- Understand the physical and microstructure basis of mechanical properties.
- Become familiar with failure mechanisms of structural materials.
- Ability to predict the useful lifetime of a material under specific load conditions.
- Knowledge of how to incorporate material strength limitations into engineering design.

Course structure
12 weeks: lectures 3 hrs/week, 4 lab demonstration sessions

Module 1 (week 1-3): Elasticity
- stress and strain
- Hooke's law
- nature and types of chemical bonding
- atomic structure of solids
- microscopic insight to elasticity
- modulus limited design
- Demonstration 1: Elastic modulus of composite materials

Module 2 (week 4-6): Plasticity
- tensile testing
- perfect strength, dislocations, yielding
- mechanics of plastic flow
- strengthening mechanisms
- yielding under combined stress
- yield-limited design
- Demonstration 2: Effect of microstructure on the strength of an aluminum alloy

Module 3 (week 7-8): Fracture mechanics
- energetics of fracture growth
- plasticity at the fracture tip
- measurement of fracture toughness
- damage tolerance design
- elements of fractography
- Demonstration 3: Measuring the toughness of low carbon steels

Module 4 (week 9-10): Fatigue
- low- and high-cycle fatigue
- laboratory testing in fatigue
- residual stress, surface and environmental effects
- fatigue of cracked components
- designing out fatigue failure

Module 5 (week 11-12): Creep
- stress-strain-time relationship
- creep testing
- physical mechanism of creep
- diffusion
- creep-resistant materials
- Demonstration 4: Creep and high temperature deformation of aluminum

Evaluation:

Prerequisites and relevance to other courses:
MATLS 1M03 "Structure and Properties of Materials" AND (ENGINEER 2P04 "Engineering Mechanics A" OR registration in level 4 or above CIVENG OR registration in level 3 or above mechanical engineering).

Recommended texts:
- Michael F. Ashby and David R. H. Jones, Engineering materials 1: an introduction to properties, applications and design, 4th ed., (Elsevier, 2011). ISBN: 978-0-08-096665-6

- Norman E. Dowling, Mechanical behavior of materials: engineering methods for defor-mation, fracture, and fatigue, 4th ed., (Pearson Education Inc., 2013). ISBN: 978-0-470-37317-0