Materials Structure and Mechanical Properties
Course is intended for first year graduate students in MSE, or graduate students in other fields, needing a solid foundation in the relationships between structure and mechanical properties in materials for advanced study and research. Microscopic structure of crystalline, molecular, amorphous and ordered non-crystalline solids, including point, line, and planar defects, twinning, and martensitic and pressure induced phase transformations. Mechanical properties of materials including: Use of tensors to describe stress, strain, and elastic constants, time-dependent elastic (anelastic) and plastic (creep) behavior, viscoelasticity, strengthening mechanisms, ductility, and toughness. Macroscopic mechanical properties are described in terms of atom-level mechanisms of elasticity, plasticity, and fracture.
Topics
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of material microstructure including bonding and atom arrangements on atomic and mesoscopic length scales, and point line and planar defects, for a range of materials including metals, ceramics, and polymers using conceptual frameworks and terminology common in materials science.
- Students will demonstrate understanding of tensor fields (stress, strain) and tensor properties in materials and their representations in different coordinate systems.
- Students will identify and analyze mechanical properties of a wide range of materials (metals, ceramics, polymers) using fundamental mechanisms of elastic and plastic deformation, as well as fracture.
Official roster learning outcomes
Prerequisites & course information
background equivalent to: MATH 2940; PHYS 2214; CHEM 2090.
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026-2027
- Catalogue entry ↗
Catalogue variants
- Materials Structure and Mechanical Properties · 3.0 · Graduate