P&O Life cycle of materials: Project work and problem solving linked to the core course

The concept of the “Project work and problem solving” assignment concerns the complete life cycle of materials covering extraction, development and processing of new materials, shaping and forming, characterisation, failure analysis as well as recycling. The student will be familiarised with the development, processing, characterisation and evaluation of the most important material classes; metals, ceramics, polymers and composites, and introduced and gain practical experience in the most relevant material characterisation techniques available at the department, including for example scanning electron and light optical microscopy, X-ray diffraction, thermal analysis, non-destructive testing, orientation imaging microscopy and texture analysis.

The project work and problem solving is organised in 6 modules (of which 2 are in parallel), as schematically presented below. The modules on Ceramics and Polymers & Composites are running in parallel and will be attended by the students of the options Metals & Ceramics and Polymers & Composites, and Materials for Nanotechnology respectively.

Module 1: Failure analysis

This module addresses the investigation of a practical failure case by means of fractography and microstructural analysis. The students will work in small groups on a failure case study to be chosen from a set of collected objects. Aluminium bolts fractured under 3 different controlled conditions will be provided as textbook examples to combine literature information with practical experience. The students will be practically confronted with the question: why did this component fail and how can it be avoided in the future?

Module 2: Ternary phase diagrams

Because of the importance of phase diagrams in material development and behaviour prediction, a module composed of seminars and exercises is provided to train the student in reading, understanding and the use of ternary phase diagrams. Phase diagrams clarify the correlation between the materials composition, microstructure and thermo-mechanical history during production or use, and allow to understand material properties a posteriori. Moreover, they can be used to predict material properties during production or in use.

Module 3: Metal forming and texture

This module will provide more insight in the concepts of texture and anisotropy and their importance in plastic deformation processes of metals, and demonstrate the influence of plastic deformation on the microstructural aspects and mechanical properties of metallic materials and explain how these aspects can be quantified and represented. The students will get familiar with the specific texture processing software developed at MTM and the MTM-Taylor software to simulate different deformation processes and predict the corresponding texture evolution. The students will be introduced in the on-going materials research that includes finite-element simulations. Hands-on sessions are organised for two case studies, i.e., plate rolling and deep drawing of a cylindrical cup.

Module 4: Polymers and Composites

The students will operate in small groups and will be practically confronted with a number of different processing techniques for polymer composites. The module aims at understanding the influence of the fibre configuration on the production process and the final material properties, as well as the influence of different parameters on the production process. The case study component is a polymer composite soupspoon, which is subdivided in a holding part and the bowl part. The students will have to define the material requirements for both parts, select the most appropriate materials and production process and effective produce and evaluate both parts of the spoon. An excursion will be organized to a polymer composite manufacturer.

Module 5: Ceramics

Small groups of students will define a ceramic system for a certain application of their interest that will be experimentally studied on a laboratory scale by means of the preparation of small samples. The study will cover the full processing route starting from commercially available starting powders, starting powder characterization and preparation, component consolidation, sintering, material characterisation and evaluation. The students will select, process and evaluate a selected technical ceramic system allowing to elucidate the correlation between phase diagrams, processing parameters, microstructure and properties. Moreover, practical experience will be gained with a number of ceramic specific processing techniques and characterisation methods.

Module 6: Closing the materials cycle

In this module, the students will design and evaluate a flow sheet for the (re)winning of materials from a waste stream such as for example printed circuit boards, catalytic converters, automotive scrap fractions,… An experimental program will be set-up to simulate the flow sheet on lab scale, which will be effectively executed and evaluated.
This module also incorporates practical sessions to introduce the basic principles of winning by electrolysis. Besides making the students acquainted with electrochemical basic concepts this part of the practical also aims at introducing the appliances for electrochemical measurements (potentiostats, reference electrodes…). An excursion will be organized to a winning or recycling plant.