Natural Sciences Tripos Part IA - Department of Materials Science ...

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Course SynopsesCourse A: Phase Transformations (12 lectures): Dr ER WallachImproving metallic materials is a vital activity at theleading edge of science and technology. Metals haveoffered unrivalled combinations of properties andreliability over many centuries, generally at affordablecosts. They are versatile because subtle changes in theirmicrostructures can cause significant variations in theirproperties, e.g. the strengths of commercial steels rangefrom as low as 50 MPa to up to 5500 MPa. It is possibleto specify and produce metals with very specificproperties and so metals continue to be used in manydifferent applications despite the increased competitionfrom other classes of material such as polymers, ceramics and composites. Hence an understanding of thedevelopment of microstructure in metals is essential for the materials scientist. The course builds on thecoverage of metals and alloys in Part IA. Whereas Part IA dealt mainly with thermodynamic aspects, kineticsare emphasised when treating phenomena such as diffusion, solidification and solid-state transformations.Course B: Environmental Stability of Materials (12 lectures): Dr NA RutterAlmost all materials in service are degraded by chemical reactionwith their environment. The phenomenon is called corrosion; it isvery often corrosion which limits the useful lifetime ofcomponents. The process is extremely costly - apart fromreplacement costs of components, equipment and machinery,corrosion causes failure, sometimes catastrophic, resulting ininjury and loss of life. Corrosion or environmental degradationconsumes materials, and the process is thus a drain on the world'smineral resources and energy resources.The phenomenon takes many forms, depending on the material/environment system. This course focuses on thecorrosion and oxidation of metals, dealing with how and why metals corrode, how we can predict the processes,and how we can measure them. We will also learn some of the principles of corrosion protection andprevention.The course will finally also explore how chemical reactions of materials can be put to useful technologicaladvantage. We will look at how high-density energy storage in rechargeable, lightweight batteries has been keyto the advancement of portable communications devices and we will examine the issues surrounding thedevelopment of hydrogen fuel cells for transportation applications.
Course C: Polymers (12 lectures): Prof RE CameronPolymers are very commonly occurring materials, but therelationships between their chemical structure, molecularconformations, and functional properties are far from simple. As“complex fluids”, polymers differ from “simple” molecular liquidsin that they can exhibit a wide range of partially ordered phases thatshow behaviour intermediate between a liquid and a solid. Suchsystems are generally described as “self-organising”, and this behaviour can be exploited to fabricate complexstructures from the molecular level upwards. It can also give rise to unusual mechanical behaviour, such as theshear thinning of a molten polymer or the entropic modulus of a cross-linked rubber. The course aims to give abasic overview of the most commonly occurring polymeric materials, and some of the techniques forcharacterising their structure and mechanical properties.Course D: Mechanics of Materials and Structures (12 lectures): Dr PD BristoweAny structure, whatever its function, must be able towithstand the loads imposed upon it during its lifetime. Whilemere survival may sometimes be enough, often such loadsmust be carried efficiently. Building on ideas introduced inPart IA, this course aims to understand the approaches thatcan be used to enable materials and structures to withstandstresses efficiently by considering both the nature of thestresses and how materials respond to them both elasticallyand irreversibly, illustrating these concepts using bothsynthetic and biological materials and structures.Course E: Electronic Materials and Devices (9 lectures): Dr ND MathurThe electronic properties of materials constitute afascinating subject of great technologicalsignificance. We will see how the most basiccomponents – metals, semiconductors and insulators– may be understood within a single coherentframework. This requires a quantum-mechanicaltreatment of the valence electrons, in a crystal devoidof microstructure. We will then investigate the keyrole of dopant atoms in semiconductors, beforeturning to semiconductor devices, i.e. the buildingblocks of the electronics industry.
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Natural Sciences Tripos Part IA - Department of Materials Science ...

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