MECH 3420 Engineering Materials II

Instructor: Sherry Chen (

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Office: Room 2551, Lift 27-28
Email: xianchen@ust.hk
Teaching Assistants:
Chenbo Zhang, czhangap@connect.ust.hk, Room G031B
Jiang Cui, jcuiab@connect.ust.hk, Room 4018, Lift 3
website: https://canvas.ust.hk/courses/7554
suggested textbook:
9th Edition Materials Science and Engineering, W. D. Callister JR. and
David G. Rethwisch (Cal-Reth)

Materials
Solids

Metals/alloys

Ceramics

Polymers

Composites

Metamaterials

Metals/alloys
structure
Ceramics

Polymers

chemical composition/formula
phenomenon, behavior, property

processing and characterization

Composites

Metamaterials

application

Review of MECH 2410

Atomic structure and bonding

Fundamentals of crystallography and symmetry of

crystalline solids

Metals/alloys and their mechanical properties

Atomic structure
Bohr atom model
out-shell orbital
out-shell electron

electronic/magnetic properties
bonding types

electron cloud
usually, we treat an atom as

core

Crystalline solids and bonds

B

Bond

Interatomic interaction

Bonding strength
A

F attractive

F repulsive
F total = F repulsive + F attractive

attraction:
long-range interaction

r0

separation distance

repulsion:
short-range interaction

Interatomic potential and bonding length

F
d
F=
dr
r0

seperation distance

At equilibrium, F = 0, i.e.,

d
| r0 = 0
dr

r0
A

r0

seperation distance

Melting temperature
Elastic modulus
Thermal expansion
Physical properties

Types of bonding
All types of bonding are the results of the long-range attraction and
short-range repulsion.
Main types are:
Ionic

strong

non-directional

Covalent

strong

directional

Metallic

varying

non-directional

Van de Waals

weak

directional

Hydrogen

weak

similar to ionic

Crystallography and symmetry

Crystalline solids: Atoms/molecules arrange periodically to tile the
3D space.
b2

b1

For any atom position belongs to the lattice, it can be written as

3

ai u i
i=1

for some integer tuples ui

Lattice and crystal structure

Bravais Lattice (simple lattice)

Multi-lattice (complex lattice)

1. simple cubic
2. face centered cubic
3. body centered cubic
4. simple tetragonal
5. body centered tetragonal
6.
7.
8.
9.

simple orthorhombic
body centered orthorhombic
face centered orthorhombic
base centered orthorhombic

10. rhombohedral
11. simple hexagonal
12. simple monoclinic
13. base centered monoclinic
14. triclinic

A union of simple lattices

hexagonal close packed
structure
(hcp)

A
B
A

diamond structure
(2 fcc)

Metals/alloys

Bonding type: metallic, bonding strength varies, e.g. W, Hg

Ion cores + delocalized electrons, electronically conductive

Non-directional, isotropic, close packed structure (fcc, hcp)

Ductile, yield plastic deformation and twinning

nanoscale Nb pillar under uniaxial compression

Kim, Jang, Greer, Acta Mater. 58 (2010):2355

twinning of AuCuZn martensite

Song, Chen, Dabade, James, Nature 502 (2013)

Part I: Ceramic crystal structure

Sections 4.6 - 4.12, 6.3 of the Cal-Reth

Definition of ceramics:
inorganic and nonmetallic materials

NaCl
CaF2
MgO
BaTiO3
Al2O3
SiC
SiO2

Usually, ceramics consist of two or more elements, which have more

complex crystal structures. They can be either ionic bonding or
covalent bonding, depending on the electronegativity.