Welcome to the World of Material Science

Preface: What is Material Science?

Welcome to the World of Materials

Welcome to the world of science and engineering, and the application of discoveries in the world we live. Look around your environment and what is it that you see and experience. Can you identify any of these materials? Do you notice any tables, chairs, flooring, trash cans, books, or computers? There are items made of wood, metals, plastics, ceramics and combinations of these materials. If we are inclined to stay in a society where status quo is a way of life, many of the products we surround ourselves with would not be in existence. Are there any ideas on what have been major causes that have resulted in the in materials we have today?

In addition to new materials, society need understanding on how we implement these materials and what benefits do these materials give to our society?

Let’s look at a presentation by Ken Robinson. Sir Ken Robinson (born 4 March 1950) is an author, speaker, and international advisor on education in the arts to government, non-profits, education, and arts bodies. He was Director of The Arts in Schools Project (1985–89), Professor of Arts Education at the University of Warwick (1989–2001), and was knighted in 2003 for services to education.

http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Notice the comment regarding the ability of educators to prepare student to a society that is unknown. We are to school the students to materials that haven’t been discovered yet.

Did you know….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMcfrLYDm2U

Material Science is an engineering course and is the only engineering course that is defined as both a science and engineering. There is Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, and now consider Material Science and Engineering.

Before we begin our journey into Material Science, we need to review some basic safety rules. Let’s look at the first power point found day one of week one. Once we complete the journey into safety we can then venture into the world of materials. The order found in the semester course or the year long course, are suggested paths to travel. Depending on the time allocated in the school year adjustments can be made. It is recommended to closely follow the suggested path until you have gone through the course entirely. Some activities may be omitted due to the lack of materials or costs. Note it may be necessary to annotate the missing/used material(s) so they can be placed on the inventory list for future classes. Remember to also keep current the amount of supplies you have so they can be replenished.

Journal

Introduction:

Welcome to the Science and Technology Journal. This document is a living text to be created by the students under the guidance of the instructor, who are taking the Science and Technology of Materials course. The students will create this Journal throughout the year by adding articles, presentation, free writes, lab reports and weekly reviews to the documents. To assist the students in the creation of this Journal, you the teacher must guide and instruct the students on the techniques that should be followed in each section. As you travel through the journal, notice the explanations associated in each section. As you touch the tab you will be directed to that page. That page will have a narrative description of the content to be found in that section. If needed, an explanation may be found describing the template to be followed. Let’s begin our investigation into the Science and Technology Journal.

Science and Technology Journal

Journal Prompts

1. What did this article make you think of?

2. What did you read that you did not understand?

3. What did you learn from the article?

4. What puzzles you about this article?

5. Do you agree or disagree with this article?

6. If you had one question to ask the author, what would it be and why?

7. What made sense to you about this article?

Language for learning is:

· personal exploratory for the purpose of thinking, not testing incomplete a process, not a final product informal non-graded in the traditional sense

Journal Prompts:

1. I observed ........

2. My idea worked because ........

3. My goal in this project is to ........

4. Next time I’ll ........

5. My modification was to ........

6. The experiment was successful (unsuccessful) because ........

7. I wonder what would happen if ........

8. What did you do? think? feel?

9. What did you observe?

10.What was the most useful thing you heard in the last 30 minutes?

11. Write down what is bugging you.

12. What could the “stuff” be used for?

13. What was the “stuff” (material) like? What are its properties?

14. How did its behavior change/remain stable?

15. How is it different from similar “stuff”?

16. How would its properties be useful?

17. What did the “stuff” do?

18. Why do you think it does what it does?

It must be remembered there are NO WRONG ANSWERS! You intent should be to express your understanding of the topic being questioned. At times your free write will be based on your past experiences before any additional explanation is given. Other times it may be based on, what was taught it, and determine the level of understanding obtained.

Each Lab write up should have the name of all participants and the date of the lab

Title the lab… This may seem simple but it is essential to identify the lab

All Lab write ups should have:

Objective

Procedure

Data

Conclusion

The conclusion is the most import part of the write up. It should include whether the objective has been met or not. Use the information from the data portion of the write up to support your decisions. This write up should be factual.

Remember to ask “why?” did something occur and why you did what was done, and let this support your conclusive argument.

Articles

Throughout the semesters, articles will be distributed to the students and it is their responsibility to

1) Place the article in the Journal and

2) READ THE ARTICLE! These articles are support materials to the information presented, and the students are responsible for knowing what the articles contained. The articles can be included in the tests of the material to be graded.

Scientific Content

Scientific Content This section is for students to record the scientific content from the class. This will help them when working on weekly reviews and for reviewing for exams. Important Concepts should be placed in this section, including some worksheets that are distributed throughout the class.

Presentations

If the instructor chooses, they can distribute copies of the presentations to students prior to class. Depending on instructor preference, presentations can be distributed immediately before class or after the material has been presented. Students can take notes on the presentations. The presentations will be presented to the students with an option to with an area to the right where the students are able to take personal notes. These presentations with notes should be included in this section

Weekly Review

The purpose of the Weekly Review is to have the students integrate everything that has occurred throughout the week. Suggested outline of this weekly report can be:

Week 1: Introduction to Safety?

Safety

It is essential to prepare all science classes with a review of safety. A power point presentation is available covering the topic. It must be stressed that clothing, safety glasses, and hair are a few points of discussion that could be listed as general safety procedures.

Glassware can result in cuts let alone injecting solutions into an open wound as a result of the cuts. Pouring materials into glassware is also a point to be considered. Prevention of “splashing,” drips, and thermal shock are major issues of considerations that can be prevented by simply erroring on the side of caution.

When dealing with chemicals, protective goggles is a must, as well as the usage of the safety techniques established in your previous chemistry classes such as waffling as oppose to smelling into a vial or test tube.

Heating is a common property that will be used throughout the course. We will be using various heating devices and it is essential that we maintain all levels of safety that are referred to in the power point presentation.

A safety quiz will be administered to verify awareness of the safety procedures established in this class.

Safety Power point

Safety Quiz

Let’s begin the investigation of materials.

Oobleck Experiment.

Purpose of the activity:

1. making observations

2. being open to the unexpected

3. looking at properties

Materials:

1. 5 oz. Dixie cups or plastics cups

2. wood craft sticks

3. water

4. white powder (cornstarch)

Procedure:

1. Fill the Dixie cup approximately 1/3 to 1/2 full with white powder (cornstarch).

2. Add 1/3 as much water.

3. Stir with craft stick.

4. Consistency should be sort of like thick toothpaste or putty.

5. Go outside and experiment with the material.

Experiment with the substance:

1. stir slow

2. stir fast

3. push the stick down through it – slowly and quickly

4. squeeze it in your hand

5. roll it into a ball and pull it apart

6. hit a ball with a hammer

7. play catch with

Journal:

1. Describe the material

2. How did you make it?

3. What did you do to it?

4. How did it respond/behave?

Teacher Information to describe to the students after the experiment is completed

This activity demonstrates

1. a non-Newtonian material. It does NOT “obey” the laws of Newtonian physics.

2. Oobleck displays a property known as dilatancy which is the tendency to become more rigid (solid) when it is stirred or subjected to a shear force or pressure.

3. Therefore, Oobleck is known as a shear-thickening fluid (STF). Let the students experiment with the mixture before telling them that the white powder is cornstarch. This is a good opening day or first week activity to introduce journaling.

Class Discussion after experimentation and journaling:

What happened?

1. A “correctly-made” batch of Oobleck should move like a fluid (liquid) when slowly stirred. It will be thick and viscous but “still flow”.

2. When stirred quickly (more shear force applied), the mixture should “lock up” and behave like a solid. Upon sitting still, the mixture will return to its fluid state.

3. If the craft stick is slowly pushed down through the mixture, little resistance will be felt and the stick will reach the bottom of the cup.

4. If the craft stick is quickly rammed onto the surface of the mixture it will not be able to penetrate into the mixture which has become rigid due to the added energy (force).

Explanation?

1. Cornstarch is a polymer which means it is made up of long molecules.

2. Water and cornstarch do not mix real well. The starch doesn’t fully dissolve; it is more of a suspension.

3. The starch molecule “rolls up” from both ends and becomes somewhat of a spherical shape that might resemble BB’s.

a. Students seem to understand this when an analogy is made to a “slap bracelet”.

b. When slowly stirred, the starch “balls” roll around each other and the mixture has fluid properties.

c. When a larger amount of shear force is applied, the molecule uncurls and becomes more linear.

d. These long molecules then entangle and the mixture becomes rigid like a solid.

e. When the shear force is removed, the molecules move more freely and “roll” back up into balls which allows the mixture to flow like a liquid again.

-cornstarch in water without shear force -cornstarch in water with shear force

-like BB’s (spheres) -molecules uncoil and stretch out

-roll around and move like a fluid -chains become entangled and lock . up

Cornstarch does not mix well and will separate. This activity can be tied into a Forensic activity simply by adding some food coloring into the mix. Both physical and chemical properties can be illustrated in the Oobleck activity and an extension of the Oobleck activity can be made discussing the effects of Kevlar

Vocabulary:

Non-Newtonian - does NOT follow the laws of physics as described by Newton

Dilatant - adding energy (shear force) makes a liquid thicker or more rigid – more viscous

examples – oobleck (cornstarch-water mixture), liquid body armor

Thixotropic - adding energy (shear force) makes a solid thinner or liquefy – less viscous

examples – catsup, concrete, some paint Ralph Lauren, printer’s ink

Viscosity resistance or opposition to flow of a liquid

Options:

Have 3 different bowls of “powder” in separate areas of the room. Use cornstarch, flour, and plaster of Paris. Do not tell the students that the powders are different. Let them discover that the batches are not all the same and hypothesize and investigate why.

Make large batches of Oobleck and place it in shallow pans. Have students slap it with their hands or young children step on it.

Have students experiment to determine the “perfect” recipe for Oobleck while making and recording all measurements.

Another thixotropy and dilatancy lab may be found in the Battelle MS&T Handbook or CD beginning on page 4.4

Watch the YouTube video “A pool filled with non-Newtonian fluid” at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2XQ97XHjVw&mode=related&search

The students can read an article about liquid body armor and then write a short summary paragraph that relates it to the Oobleck lab they did in class.

Body Armor Fit for a Superhero –

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_32/b3996068.htm

Liquid Body Armor –

http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/armyweapons/a/liquidarmor.htm

There are also several video clips about liquid body armor that students find interesting.

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/159764/liquid_armor/

http://www.nanooze.org/english/articles/article20_liquidarmor.html

There is a Dr. Seuss book about oobleck called “Bartholomew and the Oobleck”.

Articles are available to support the points on:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=enhanced-armor&print=true

Liquid Body Armor

Journal entries:

Describe the material.

+3 – white, thick, hard to stir and mix

How did you make it?

+3 – half cup of white powder (cornstarch) in a cup and added enough water to make a thick paste

Stirred with a craft stick until mixed.

What did you do to it?

+4 – stirred slow, stirred fast, pushed stick down slowly, pushed stick down quickly, played with it in my hands and rolled it into a ball, let it ooze between my fingers

How did it respond/behave?

+4 – flowed like a liquid when little or no pressure was applied – became stiff and hard like a solid when force or pressure was applied – shattered when hit with a hammer -