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Posters for the 4th North American Materials Education Symposium, 2013

Poster Abstracts

# Authors Title
1 Ron Kander
Kanbar College of Design, Engineering and Commerce Philadelphia University
Teaching Materials Selection to Engineering, Design, and Business Students in a Mixed Classroom: Lessons Learned
2 Guillermo Salas Banuet, María Eugenia Noguez Amaya and José G.
Departamento de Ingeniería Metalúrgica, Facultad de Química, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
The Thinking in Learning
3 Guillermo Salas Banuet, María Eugenia Noguez Amaya and José G. Ramírez Vieyra
Departamento de Ingeniería Metalúrgica, Facultad de Química, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.
Archaeometallurgy as a Tool in the Teaching of Some Materials Science Issues
4 Krzysztof J.Cios1, Les M. Sztandera2* and George Y. Baaklini and Alex Vary3
1. Virginia Commonwealth University, VA 2. Philadelphia University, PA 3. NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH
Mapping the Relationship between Materials Structures and their Physical and Chemical Properties through Fuzzy Sets Approach
5 Alexis G. Clare
Kazuo  Inamori School of Engineering, New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University
Engineering Exploration Laboratory
6 Jacob Gines
Mississippi State University
Aesthetics in Question:
Manipulative and Generative Plasticity of Fly Ash
7 Michael L. Falk1, Alejandra Magna2,Michael Reese3
1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University 2. Department of Computer and Information Technology, Purdue University 3. Center for Educational Resources, Johns Hopkins University
Building Computation into the Core of Materials Science and Engineering Education
8 Chris Pistorius, Shang Wang and Andrew Reilly
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
Campus Buildings As Materials Selection Exercises
9 Ayse Kilic, Yılmaz Taptik
Istanbul Technical University, Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Dept., Istanbul- Turkey
50 Years In Metallurgical And Materials Engineering Education: ITU Metallurgical And Materials Engineering (Turkey)
10 Asst. Prof. Christopher J. Hansen
University of Massachusetts Lowell
Engineering Problem Solving, Materials & Process Selection, Design & Innovation Based Curriculum
11 Arlindo Silva1, Hannah Melia2, Mike Ashby3
1. TULisbon, Instituto Superior Técnico, Dept. Mechanical Engineering, Portugal 2. Granta Design Ltd, Education Division, Cambridge, UK 3. University of Cambridge, Engineering Dept., Cambridge, UK
Supporting Callister-based materials science courses with CES EduPack
12 Wayne Chung
IDSA Associate Professor, Industrial Design, Carnegie Mellon University School of Design
Improved Understanding of Manufacturing Machines and Processes through Drawing and Diagrams
13 Donna Kacmar
FAIA Director Materials Research Collaborative, Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture, University of Houston
Materials Research
14 Kari Smith and Dan Burkett
School of Architecture and Design, University of Louisiana at Lafayette
The Con-nect: Con-text project
15 Charlie Bream, Nick Ball, Cristiano Cesaretto
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK
Estimation and modelling tools for advanced teaching and research
16 Hannah Melia, Magda Figuerola and Michelle Hsieh
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK
Granta Design's Teaching Resources Website
17 Stephen Warde, Dave Cebon, James Goddin
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK
GRANTA MI—A Framework for Capturing and Re-Using Research Data
18 Mike Ashby, Arlindo Silva
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK
Deciding on Low-Carbon Power Systems:
Materials and Energy Criteria
19 Luke Brown, Anna Pereira
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK
Resources to Support Bio-engineering
and Biological Materials Education
20 Marc Fry, Thomas Götte
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK
From Design to Science: An Educational Resource on ‘NEU’ Materials to Inspire and Motivate Students
21 Glen Longhurst
Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT, USA
Finding Diffusivity and Solubility from Permeation Transients
22 Eric Webber
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA
Meditations on Making Explorations in Materials and Tectonics


Abstracts

Poster 1

Teaching Materials Selection to Engineering, Design, and Business Students in a Mixed Classroom: Lessons Learned

Ron Kandar
Kanbar College of Design, Engineering and Commerce Philadelphia University

At Philadelphia University's Kanbar College of Design, Engineering and Commerce, we have combined the School of Design, the School of Engineering and the School of Business into one college with a common core curriculum.

 One of the common core courses available to the students is a Materials Selection course that is taught from a systems analysis point of view using CES EduPack.  This course was piloted in the fall of 2012 and is being taught again in the spring of 2013.  In the first two offerings of this course (taught to a mixed classroom of designers, engineers and business students), many valuable insights have been uncovered about learning style differences between these three disciplines and the advantages and disadvantages of having such a divers mix of disciplines in the same classroom.  Lessons learned will be discussed and examples of teaching technique and pedagogies that worked (and examples of things that didn't work) will be discussed.  Examples of how CES EduPack helped facilitate learning among the different disciplines will also be discussed.


Poster 2

The Thinking in Learning

Guillermo Salas Banuet, María Eugenia Noguez Amaya and José G. Ramírez Vieyra
Departamento de Ingeniería Metalúrgica, Facultad de Química,
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

The need to change the traditional learning process in any education field to a new one, reflexive and transcendent, is set. The main argument is the need to answer not to the based-on-productivity economy, but to face actively new paradigms in a demanding changing world. The reflexive learning process must be self-directed. It must allow the students to grasp and develop the necessary requirements of the knowledge field. Knowledge, values, and thinking, cannot be given but constructed by every person. The former premises ought to be the foundations of all the experiences and efforts for a better teaching.

The thesis is experienced through the creation of learning environments, where the students can learn the necessary knowledge in a reflexive way. At the same time, they learn to discover their own talents and capacities at their own pace. They should develop their skills and expertise and must acquire the needed attitudes to build their own competencies. Besides, it is a help for the students in finding pleasure, motivation, development and a sense for their own life which brings a great benefit.

Several environments have been created by the authors. An example in a materials science course, in the laboratory, is given: the usual activities were completely changed so that the group of students decides what to do and why, regarding the possible processes needed to strengthen an alloy.

According to the students, the experience leads them to direct his professional life: those who had inquisitive spirit, to research, and the others, focused on engineering, towards technological development. The results experienced by the authors allow concluding that this concept on education is a successful alternative to improve the learning process needed in our society.

Those who are involved in the reflexive learning must be committed with the continuous creation of learning environments.


Poster 3

Archaeometallurgy as a Tool in the Teaching of Some Materials Science Issues

Guillermo Salas Banuet, María Eugenia Noguez Amaya and José G. Ramírez Vieyra
Departamento de Ingeniería Metalúrgica, Facultad de Química,
Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

Archaeometallurgy gives an opportunity to engage the attention of the students providing interesting examples in Materials Science topics within a Human experience. Thus, some metallurgical principles are learned rather easily and enthusiastically, enhancing the understanding of other peoples and cultures, humanizing the technical learning. This will allow a student integral human development.

In this work, two topics are given for the Materials Science issues: Non-ferrous isomorphic Au-Cu and eutectic Cu-Ag phase diagrams, and diffusion and oxidation at the surface of those alloys.

Examples are given from the kind of alloys made by pre-Hispanics using copper alloys (tumbagas) and, as the complexity of the diagram is showed, the student will study their properties. Diffusion and oxidation at the surface is a natural process while forging and recrystallizing. Basic models on oxidation and diffusion are used to explain the depletion gilded process used extensively in many magnificent objects.

As a remarkable result, the authors have notice the students enthusiasm in developing extracurricular and BS projects on archaeometallurgy.

Archaeometallurgy offers a wide variety of Material Science topics, so teachers must enhance their knowledge in this area as in others (general culture) to be able of enrich the Materials Science learning.


Poster 4

Mapping the Relationship between Materials Structures and their Physical and Chemical Properties through Fuzzy Sets Approach

Krzysztof J.Cios1, Les M. Sztandera2* and George Y. Baaklini and Alex Vary3
1. Virginia Commonwealth University, VA

2. Philadelphia University, PA

3. NASA Glenn Research Center, Cleveland, OH

*Corresponding author

Many college freshmen with interests in Business, Computer and Materials Science declare undecided major as they fear extensive experimental part in designing new materials. Materials Science software programs and computational intelligence approaches serve as invaluable tools to recruit students into intergrated business, design, and engineering college curricula with computational materials science courses in them. This poster presentation summarizes capabilities of one of the computational approach techniques - fuzzy sets and systems, applied to evaluate and make predictions of density and flexural strength of NASA 6Y silicon nitride ceramic. It is based on NASA-TM-106049 technical manuscript published by NASA Glenn Research Center. The authors believe that it is important to revive and highlight past successful applications of fuzzy sets during Materials Systems Symposia to inspire student interest and new research that could benefit from utilizing this approach. Fuzzy sets and systems could be utilized in the process of designing materials in general, and composite materials, such as ceramics, in particular, especially for assessing more complex relationships between the processing variables and parameters, like strength, which are governed by randomness of manufacturing processes.

This poster summarizes the research in which processing variables of sintering nitrogen pressure, milling time, and sintering time were used as an input to the fuzzy system. Density and flexural strength were designated as output parameters of the system. Data from 273 Si3N4 modulus of rupture bars tested at room temperature, as well as data from 135 bars tested at 1370 C were used in this study. Mathematical functions of generalized mean operator and Hamming distance were utilized to build fuzzy predictive model. The maximum test error for density did not exceed 3.3 percent, and 7.1 percent for flexural strength, as compared with the errors of 1.72 percent and 11.34 percent, respectively obtained by using another computational intelligence approach - artificial neural networks. It is suggested that developers of ceramics and composite structures could achieve better strength and density, and shorten the processing time by utilizing fuzzy sets and artificial neural networks in tandem. The former could help in capturing imprecise relationships which are due to unavoidable variations in manufacturing processes, the latter in capturing more precise, although still very complex mapping relationships.


Poster 5

Engineering Exploration Laboratory

Alexis G. Clare, Kazuo
Inamori School of Engineering, New York State College of Ceramics. Alfred University

The Kazuo Inamori School of Engineering currently offers BS Majors in Materials Science and Engineering, Glass Engineering Science, Ceramic Engineering, Biomedical Materials Engineering and Science, Mechanical Engineering and a new degree; Renewable Energy Engineering.  Freshmen students may enter declaring a Major or may enter as “Undecided” Engineers, either way they are encouraged in their first year to choose two options for their Engineering Explorations class in the Majors that they are intending or believe they wish to pursue.  These Laboratories are designed to give the students an appreciation for the type of engineering for the major associated with that laboratory. This poster will describe the options and describe, in some detail the options in which the author is an instructor; the Laboratories for Renewable Energy Engineering and for Glass Engineering and Science.


Poster 6

Aesthetics in Question:
Manipulative and Generative Plasticity of Fly Ash

Jacob Gines
Mississippi State University

My research and teaching engages industrial materials and building tectonics; including, second-life industrial products.  Fly ash is one of the many coal-combustion byproducts of coal-fired power plants.  Through the use of electrostatic precipitators fly ash is captured, stored, and reused.  Recent figures show that around 43% of reclaimed fly ash is used for the stabilization of soils, as a cement additive, in waste stabilization and solidification, filler in wood and plastic products, etc.  Fly ash is also the primary ingredient in Navajo FlexCrete block where it is used as a natural pozzolan, resulting in higher workability, strength, durability, and decreased permeability.  Using an aerated concrete approach FlexCrete block benefits from being fire resistive, energy efficient, and (because of its plastic nature) it is easy to manipulate and cut. Aesthetically, FlexCrete block appears much like your standard masonry gray block, yet it is porous and fibrous.  The most common exterior finishing treatments for the block are either plaster or stucco.  The proposed poster looks at two case studies where Navajo FlexCrete block has been used in innovative ways to express the natural aesthetic and transformability of the material in an exposed installation.  First, is a single family residence (Sweet Caroline House, 2006) that I designed and built on the Navajo Reservation in southern Utah.  This home expresses the block in its virgin state and is sealed clear.  Second, is a small Bath House (2008) in Bluff, Utah. Here the block is cut to express parametric surfaces then left exposed to the elements.  This poster analyzes the effectiveness of each application for their aesthetic and material performance.  The findings will educate architects and builders about the potentials and limitations of building with fly ash infused cementitious block.


Poster 7

Building Computation into the Core of Materials Science and Engineering Education

Michael L. Falk1, Alejandra Magna2,Michael Reese3
1. Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Johns Hopkins University

2. Department of Computer and Information Technology, Purdue University

3. Center for Educational Resources, Johns Hopkins University

The Materials Genome Initiative aims to integrate computation with experiment and informatics to revolutionize the materials engineering and design process. To achieve this goal Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) students will need to be introduced to computation as an integral part of their disciplinary practice and core knowledge base. We are undertaking a process of weaving computation throughout the MSE curriculum by requiring a discipline-based computation and programming course in the first year of study for MSE majors at Johns Hopkins University.  During this class students are introduced to computation through projects relevant to the MSE discipline. We are simultaneously introducing computational content into the core MSE courses covering structures, thermodynamics, kinetics and phase transformations, electronic, optical and magnetic properties, mechanical properties and biological materials. We have collected survey data regarding how such interactions alter students' perception of the utility of computation, their computational capabilities and their future career goals. We have also collected pre- and post- test data aimed at measuring how using computation in core classes aids in assimilation of core MSE concepts. Students were also videotaped during think-aloud exercises that were subsequently analyzed with an eye to uncovering relevant questions regarding how disciplinarily grounded computational work influences the student learning process in an MSE context.  This research is supported by the NSF through the Research Initiation Grant in Engineering Education program as Award #1137006.


Poster 8

Campus Buildings As Materials Selection Exercises

Chris Pistorius, Shang Wang and Andrew Reilly
Carnegie Mellon University

Campus buildings are highly visible, long-lasting records of materials choices, and can be valuable in teaching materials selection.  The Gates and Hillman Centers at Carnegie Mellon University (completed 2009; Mack Scogin Merrill Elam Architects) embody several striking design features, and was one of nine projects to receive the American Institute for Architects Honor Award for Architecture. As a summer undergraduate research project, some materials choices in this building were evaluated; the aim was to produce case studies to be used in a materials selection class which is taken by students in the Civil and Environmental Engineering program.  Perhaps the most striking materials choice is the black anodized zinc rain screen, paired with large windows (each slightly differently shaped). Within the building, aesthetics dictated use of cherry-colored wood for doors, and the flooring in the upper levels. "Brazilian cherry" (jatoba; Hymenaea courbaril) was used as floor covering.  Analysis of the materials and processing requirements of flooring (mainly hardness, available sizes, and machinability) shows the suitability of this choice.  Wood density is shown to be a redundant selection criterion, since there is a close correspondence between hardness and density. We suggest that such campus construction projects provide an excellent opportunity for engaging students with large-scale practical and tangible materials selection.


Poster 9

50 Years In Metallurgical And Materials Engineering Education:
ITU Metallurgical And Materials Engineering (Turkey)

Engineering Problem Solving, Materials & Process Selection, Design & Innovation Based Curriculum

Ayse Kilic, Yılmaz Taptik
Istanbul Technical University, Metallurgical and Materials Eng. Dept., Istanbul- Turkey

ITU Metallurgical and Materials Engineering (MME) Department was established in 1960-1961 and is known as the first MME department in Turkey. For the last 10 years within the 50 year long academic history, ITU MME is having accredited educational programs and this process will proceed till 2016. Based upon gained experiences; MME Department recently works with the aim of both serving as a model of the improvement and changes throughout the country and also sharing this knowledge with a global vision. Especially in the last 20 year-period, the curriculum is reorganized considering the effects of emerging developments in engineering education all over the world and from now on educational programs of MME are in accordance with the current trends and future requirements. Two main points create the focus idea of this education: the first is the material and process selection with problem solving approach; the second one is the conductance of final product design and the innovation concept with the perspective of project management. This approach initiates in the first academic term with the lecture called as “Introduction to Metallurgical and Materials Engineering & Engineering Ethic”. The objectives of educational program are obtained with the integration between the program and the lectures based upon basic science, basic engineering and engineering design lectures existing in curriculum of fifth to eighth semesters, namely; Design Principles & Material Selection for Engineering Application, Modeling & Simulation of Metallurgical & Materials Process, Quality Engineering, Problem Solving Techniques Design &Project Management, Environment & Ethic in Metallurgical & Materials Process, Design Project.  The problem solving and project based interdisciplinary team working skills of the students are increased especially by means of conducted projects specific to engineering design lectures. In this study, perception way of students and faculty members upon applied curriculum and also achieved developments are asserted.


Poster 10

Engaging Students via Service-Learning Projects on Historic Materials Design

Christopher J. Hansen
UMass Lowell

The Lowell National Historical Park encompasses the Lowell historic textile mills that served as a center of the American industrial revolution.  The National Park Service (NPS) maintains the Suffolk Mill exhibit and has expressed a need for improved knowledge of materials knowledge related to the mill buildings and machinery.  The motivation of this service-learning project study is to observe the influence of student-community partner interaction on college student interest and motivation in a materials science course as a function of their engagement with the community partner.

Service-learning is the application of student course training to meet the needs of a community partner.  Here, the students are UMass Lowell Mechanical Engineering sophomores (140) enrolled in an introductory materials science course.  The community partners are the NPS and the Tsongas Industrial History Center (TIHC), who provide materials-based education tours for primary school students and aim to improve staff knowledge related to materials concepts.

The college students were split into two equally sized groups.  One group was provided tours by NPS or TIHC staff, while the second group was given a lecture on the historic mills of New England by a professor.  Students then worked as teams to investigate a specific materials-related aspect of the mills to develop a 15 minute presentation for delivery to NPS and TIHC staff.  At the end of the project, students were administered a survey of questions using a 9-point Likert scale to gauge motivation and interest.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that the physical interaction with the exhibits and the exhibit staff increased student interest, motivation, and effort applied to the project, and which will be judged from the ongoing survey data analysis.  The insights will indicate the potential for materials science professionals to improve educational outcomes for their college students and engage the wider community on materials-related topics.


Poster 11

Supporting Callister-based materials science courses with CES EduPack

Arlindo Silva1, Hannah Melia2, Mike Ashby3
1.
TULisbon, Instituto Superior Técnico, Dept. Mechanical Engineering, Portugal
2. Granta Design Ltd, Education Division, Cambridge, UK

3. University of Cambridge, Engineering Dept., Cambridge, UK

CES EduPack is an effective way of visualizing fundamental concepts in materials science and an important tool in replacing tedious tables full of numbers with powerful plots that correlate properties. It is often thought that CES EduPack is not compatible with a science led approach. The underlying assumption is that CES EduPack is just a materials and processes selection tool, and is somewhat useless in conveying other more fundamental concepts related to the structure of matter or the bonding of atoms. Nothing could be further from reality! It lets you explore the universe of materials visually. Illustrating how composition and thermal treatments affect the properties of Steel and other metals for example. The level 3 standard data table and the Elements data table, are particularly useful to support the teaching of introductory materials science courses. Other special editions are available for more focused teaching on architecture, eco-design, polymers, aerospace, bio-engineering and other disciplines. It frees the professor from scavenging for reliable data on materials and empowers students to embark on independent study and discovery. The poster will show examples of how CES EduPack can support teaching and learning in materials science.


Poster 12

Improved Understanding of Manufacturing Machines and Processes through Drawing and Diagrams

Wayne Chung, IDSA
Associate Professor, Industrial Design, Carnegie Mellon University School of Design

For undergraduate students to learn a completely new manufacturing method and understand where it lives in the world of design and engineering decisions is daunting.  Classic transfer of information through books, images, videos, and onsite tours are employed in teaching.  However these modes of information consumption are just the beginning of fully understanding a new machine process.  What teaching methods enable a student to proactively take responsibility for learning more about the machine and processes? 

Design education is about making and doing.  A junior level undergraduate design course simply coded as: 'How Things Are Made' has students visually explain the machine they just witnessed after a plant tour.  Students reference their own photographs from the site, their hand drawn sketches if there is a confidentiality issues prohibiting photographs, traditional media, books, and visual information to supplement their knowledge.  By imposing the exercise of making, three primary affects occur: critical cognitive consideration of how, why, and what the machine tool does because they have to dimensionally represent something that is realistic; cross collaboration between students within a studio setting which opens up discussion and debate; and the student is ironically responsible for teaching something that’s new and complex to a broader audience.

Specifically, the visual assignments require students to diagrammatically communicate with their own drawings and annotations the purpose of the machine to a layperson.  Later assignments require describing an entire manufacturing and assembly process sequence.  The results are students critically abstract a real life experience, use complimentary information already in existence to synthesize into their particular diagrams, and informally work together to learn and present their own interpretation of a new manufacturing process. 


Poster 13

Materials Research

Donna Kacmar, FAIA
Director Materials Research Collaborative, Associate Professor, Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture, University of Houston

We are exploring multiple ways to support our physical materials library and increase material understanding in our college through required student research and specific research projects. We are engaged with supporting the work of local professionals, including the architectural community, as well as contractors and developers, through these semester and academic year duration projects that provide opportunities for our students that link back to their increased awareness of the com-plexity of material decisions. Project one, supported by a local developer, involved creating a sus-tainability index of eight potential building materials for a day care facility located downtown. Project two, supported by our local architectural foundation, developed a database of materials made within 500 miles of our city and has proved useful to all architects designing LEED certified buildings in this area. Project three, supported by two local foundations, catalogs local industries in the hope of connecting local designers with local makers. Project four, supported by a local devel-oper, involves the carbon analysis of the construction of a concrete frame office building. The infor-mation gathered in all projects is shared with the local professional and student communities through our web site, electronic documents, physical exhibits in our materials library, and lectures.


Poster 14

The Con-nect: Con-text project

Kari Smith and Dan Burkett
School of Architecture and Design, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

The Con-nect: Con-text1 project is the first project of the spring semester undergraduate senior design studio. This project facilitates students' understanding of site issues and the importance of making. It establishes a relationship between the interrelated conditions of markings in the landscape and how markings can be made. The landscape is understood through site inventory- the critical study and understanding of the ordering systems (i.e. ecology, culture, tectonic) that have given form to a territory.  Ordering systems are explored through a process of making research with an emphasis on craft, rooted in the regional traditions of the place (i.e. dredge, offset, cast).

Students were asked to select two ordering systems of the Teche-Vermillion Basin, a 243,000 acre territory which has undergone significant geomorphic and hydrologic changes. Using place specific ordering systems as an analytical framework, students were asked to arrive at an organizational and operational understanding of the landscape territory. Throughout this exploration students had to produce, with great care, an analogous three dimensional artifact that deployed regional tectonics. Emphasis was placed on the joint or detail between the two ordering systems. The most successful projects transcended obvious and representational relationships and instead forged new operational understandings suggesting new architectural and infrastructural forms.

This studio seeks to instill an understanding of historical traditions and global culture, sustainability and site design facilitated through professionally sponsored competitions ( i.e. ACSA, IFLA).  From a pedagogical position, it is critical that while students work on the competition they are engaged in perpetual acts of making research. The importance of developing design solutions in three-dimensions can elude students as they plunge themselves into the generation of two-dimensional graphics for the project boards. Often the site of these competitions is in remote regions of the world, such as Quitio, Ecuador, therefore acts of making using regionally appropriate tectonics instills consideration of culturally embedded methods and materials.  Additionally, students enhance their mental agility developing solutions on a large geographic and geologic scale as well as the scale of an architectural detail.

This process oriented method values critical organizational and operational understandings and research making rooted in the regional traditions of the place, work which often produces new architectural and infrastructural forms.

1. Project developed in conjunction with Professor Michael McClure, University of Louisiana at Lafayette.


Poster 15

Estimation and modelling tools for advanced teaching and research

Charlie Bream, Nick Ball, Cristiano Cesaretto
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK

The world of materials is continually evolving with the number of new materials and models, which describe their performance, rising at an almost exponential rate. This presents a challenge, to both research and advanced teaching, of how to identify and communicate the benefits of these new materials and theories over existing solutions and, in the case of research, how to identify the most promising options before embarking on costly development projects. This issue can be addressed using the ‘Synthesizer’ tool, in CES Selector, which allows custom models to be added to the software, enabling the performance of new materials and structures to be predicted and compared against existing solutions on material property charts.

Some recent examples of this modelling capability include the development of ‘Synthesizer’ models to: predict the performance of balanced multi-layer materials, estimate part cost (combined material and processing costs) and, develop materials with controlled thermal expansion.


Poster 16

Granta Design's Teaching Resources Website

Hannah Melia, Magda Figuerola and Michelle Hsieh
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK

The new Teaching Resource Website contains over 225 resources contributed by academics in the Materials Education Community. The resources are intended primarily for materials related courses at the undergraduate level across Science, Engineering and Design disciplines. Most are password protected and only available to educators using CES EduPack, however a growing number are also now open access. The site includes:

  • Exercises with Worked Solutions (350+)
  • PowerPoint Lectures (70+)
  • Videos and Webinar Recordings
  • Databases and Project Files
  • Teach-yourself manuals
  • White Papers

Granta plans to continue adding more resources and we are very interested to hear about good resources that we should be linking to, good resource websites we should be collaborating with and any other ideas.


Poster 17

GRANTA MI—A Framework for Capturing and Re-Using Research Data

Dave Cebon, James Goddin and Stephen Warde
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK

Research groups in materials and related subjects amass more and more information each year—e.g., raw test data, meta-data providing context for these tests, analysis results, research notes, images and, increasingly, video. As data piles up and PhD and post-doctoral researchers come and go, it can be hard to make the most of this resource. Useful data is lost, buried in filing cabinets, hidden away on PC hard drives, or scattered around the department network. Much of this data is never re-used. Information that could be of value to collaborators or industrial sponsors is not made available to them in a format or location that makes it usable.

Industry has faced similar problems. For example, the Material Data Management Consortium (MDMC) is a collaboration of aerospace, defense, and energy enterprises that has worked with Granta Design to develop an industry-standard system for managing, controlling, sharing, and using its valuable materials data. These companies want to protect their investments in materials science. The result of this work is GRANTA MI—software that allows a research group, department, or company to capture all of its materials data in a single, central database, to manage that data, and to make it available to authorized group members and collaborators through a web browser interface that makes the data simple to search, browse, and apply.

GRANTA MI can now be applied in academic research to make best use of the investments of time, effort, and research funding that university departments and their sponsors make in materials research. This poster will show how GRANTA MI can be applied in academia, taking examples from the Transport Research Group at the Cambridge University Engineering Department, and from several European Union collaborative projects in which Granta is currently engaged with a range of academic and industrial partners. The poster will also comment on the educational benefits of such an approach—preparing research students for some key practical considerations and systems that they will encounter should they move into industry and want to maximize the impact of their work.


Poster 18

Deciding on Low-Carbon Power Systems:
Materials and Energy Criteria

Arlindo Silva and Mike Ashby
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK

If you want to make and use materials the first prerequisite is energy. The global consumption of primary energy today is approaching 500 exajoules (EJ)1, derived principally from the burning of gas, oil and coal. This reliance on fossil fuels will have to diminish in coming years to meet three emerging pressures:

  • to adjust to diminishing reserves of oil and gas
  • to reduce the flow of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
  • to reduce dependence on foreign imports of energy and the tensions these create

The world-wide energy demand is expected to treble by 2050. The bulk of this energy will be electrical. Renewable power systems draw their energy from natural sources: the sun (through solar, wind, and wave), the moon (through tidal power), and the Earth’s interior (through geothermal heat). But it is a mistake to think that they are in any sense “free”. They incur a capital cost, which can be large. They require land. Materials and energy are consumed to construct and maintain them, and both construction and maintenance have an associated carbon footprint. How can these alternative power systems be compared? We do so by examining their resource intensities. The latest CES EduPack system includes a database of low-carbon power systems and the materials of which they are made. It is a specially adapted version of the CES EduPack Level 3 database, expanded to have a new data-table, that for “Low-carbon energy systems”. The additional data-table, with which the software opens, contains records for the power systems incorporated in the tool:

  • Conventional fossil-fuel power: gas and coal
  • Nuclear power
  • Solar energy: thermal, thermo-electric and photo-voltaics
  • Wind power
  • Hydro power
  • Wave power
  • Tidal power
  • Geothermal power
  • Biomass

The database can be inquired for a number of parameters pertaining to each of the above power systems, like Capital intensity ($/kW), Area intensity (m2/kW), Material intensity (kg/kW), Construction energy intensity (MJ/kW), Construction Carbon intensity (kg/kW) and Capacity factor(%).


Poster 19

Resources to Support Bio-engineering
and Biological Materials Education

Luke Brown, Anna Pereira
Granta Design, Cambridge, UK

Granta Design is developing resources to support the teaching of bio-engineering and biological materials. This poster will look at current progress related to introductory and advanced topics, including the introductory and intermediate CES EduPack Bio-engineering Databases, and the advanced Human Biological Materials Database.

The Human Biological Materials Database is a unique resource of mechanical property data for specific human tissues that is compiled from published literature concerning the properties of the tissues of the human body. The database contains properties of the skeletal tissues, which have been collected and analysed for the main different types of material found in each individual bone, such as cortical and trabecular bone of the femur. Where possible, dependencies such as age are presented in graphical form, enabling the user to visually see how the properties are affected.

The data compilation is suitable for FEA applications, to compare the properties of these materials with synthetic materials, for educational purposes and as a general reference source. In particular the information presented will provide a thorough introduction to the mechanical properties of human tissues for educational courses. However, it is ideally suited for in-depth research of the biomechanical properties of tissues, due to the ease that the data can be extracted from the database for simulation analysis and for comparison to synthetic materials for potential prostheses.


Poster 20

From Design to Science: An Educational Resource on ‘NEU’ Materials to Inspire and Motivate Students

Marc Fry, Thomas Götte
Granta Design

Background: The New, Emerging and Unusual (NEU) Materials Database is a joint project of Granta Design, University of Cambridge and Technische Universität Berlin. It is developed to provide academics with quick access to information on NEU materials for teaching.

Concept: The database is developed for CES EduPack, an educational resource used at over 800 universities and colleges worldwide in the fields of engineering, science and design to support materials and process related teaching. Most CES EduPack Editions, like many other teaching resources, focus on established materials. The integration of materials such as Aerogels, Shape Memory Alloys and Nano-materials aims to provide educators with a supporting resource to attract their students’ interest in materials.

Embodiment: Each material record contains a description, the composition and an image of the material; —if possible, a typical application is also given. General and physical properties in the datasheet give the material a profile that can be compared to other established engineering materials using the CES EduPack selection capabilities. The incorporation of two additional attributes, Material design and Microstructure, provides information on how process technology, chemical composition and the resultant microstructure affect the material’s properties (i.e., microstructure-property relations).

Value: A computer based system enables the user to quickly access information on NEU materials and compare it to information on established engineering materials. Students can browse, search and select, and can explore unique properties, with the help of material property charts, in an interactive way.

Results and Discussion: The database was first released in January 2011. So far more than 200 academics have downloaded the database for evaluation. The level of depth as well as the breadth of the database will be reviewed based on feedback during the next development cycle. Some universities have already agreed to contribute to the database in the field of Nano-materials. The benefit to such contributing institutions and their partners will be raised awareness of their developments amongst a wider academic audience through full acknowledgement in the database.


Poster 21

Finding Diffusivity and Solubility from Permeation Transients

Glen R. Longhurst
Department of Integrated Engineering, Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT

Tritium is the radioactive isotope of hydrogen used as a fuel in fusion reactors. A significant concern for safety in fusion reactors that burn tritium as a fuel is the permeation of tritium through storage vessel and piping system walls where it becomes a threat to human health. It is important to have a good knowledge of the permeability of hydrogen isotopes, including tritium, through candidate materials for these systems.

A laboratory experiment has been developed for the Southern Utah University Materials Science and Engineering course that demonstrates one technique for measuring that diffusivity. An online mass spectrometer is used to measure the concentration transients of hydrogen in sweep gas passing through a permeation tube. The coiled tube is housed in a chamber to which relatively fast thermal transients can be applied. By filling the chamber with a mixture of hydrogen and an inert gas such as nitrogen or argon at known concentration and then inducing a step change in temperature, the classical permeation transient for hydrogen through the tube can be observed. Combining these data with known pressures and flow rates allows for determination of the hydrogen diffusivity in the material of the tube. An accompanying Excel spreadsheet numerical model allows the students to fit their experimental results to theory and compare with literature values.

The standard experiment uses a nominally 1-m length of ¼-inch 316 stainless steel tubing for permeation with a 20% mixture of H2 in Ar or D2 in N2 in the outer chamber and pure inert gas to sweep permeated hydrogenic species from the inside of the tube to the mass spectrometer. At 425°C, the permeation transient is complete within about 2 hours.

Besides demonstration of the permeation phenomenon, this experiment exposes students to the relative complexity of a measurement system and the challenges of making accurate experimental measurements.


Poster 22

Meditations on Making: Explorations in Materials and Tectonics

Eric Webber
University of Nevada, Las Vegas, NV, USA

Meditations on Making explores how to think about creating architecture and considers why certain materials and methods may be more appropriate to some projects than others.  Materials and their detailing should be consistent with and reinforce the conceptual basis for architectural production.  This course investigates ideas of making through an analysis of the work and writings of Louis Kahn, Peter Zumthor, and Carlo Scarpa, and hands-on approaches to a series of material exploration projects.  

With the advent of computer modeling and animation, architects today can develop new methods of thinking about how to conceive buildings of ever-greater complexity, responding to the challenges of speed, flexibility, and cost in ways that seemed unimaginable a generation ago.  One of the unintended side-effects of the embracing of the virtual has been a tendency among students towards a lack of rigor in considering the actual materials from which their buildings are to be constructed.  Yet these are the notes that, strung together, become the symphonic whole of any great architectural work. 

Meditations on Making is the search for the “fundamental essence” of materials and how to begin thinking about their strengths, limitations, and possibilities.  The hands on portion of the class comprises of a series of assignments where students create a series of constructed meditations exploring different ways to think about how to construct an idea.  Students examine these ideas by working directly with real materials to gain a deeper understanding of the latent possibilities of materials as carriers of architectural meaning.

The course shows students an open-ended working method using real materials as problem-solving tools, or even as generators of architectural form and tectonics. While this methodology is less-frequently used, it has tremendous potential to provide the designer with valuable insight into the inherent qualities of materials and their impact on architectural experience.