ENGR45 — Materials Science

Materials Science, also known as Properties of Materials, is an engineering course where the many unique characteristics of substances and compounds are studied.  As an example, both diamond and graphite are carbon compounds that have unique chemical properties that result in different strengths, durabilities, conductivities, hardnesses and other physical features, but what are the reasons for why they are so different from one another if they both consist only of carbon?  Essentially this is a Chemistry class for engineers, particularly students that are pursuing Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering.  I elected to take it because I felt it would complement the four semesters of Chemistry and one semester of Biology I had already completed, and also because UC Berkeley was offering a unique joint program called “Electrical Engineering and Computer Science/Materials Science and Engineering” that I was curious but not very serious about.  Taking this course allowed me to further develop my engineering practices and also helped me to understand what I would have been studying if I had decided to go in this particular direction.

The classroom experience started off in a rough way:  the original instructor was dismissed two weeks into the semester, apparently for making too many very funny but also innapropriate comments in the presence of his students–it took nearly three more weeks to find a suitable replacement.  Fortunately everything came together, albeit in an uncomfortably abbreviated semester as we had to cram many topics into a much shorter amount of time.  Something that I particularly enjoyed about this course is that we studied the chemical properties of metals and metallic compounds, something which is largely absent from General Chemistry and appropriately non-existent in the Organic Chemistry curriculum.

Lab Reports

Charpy V-Notch Impact Testing
Charpy V-Notch Impact Testing Data
Hardness Testing
Jominy End Quench
Jominy End Quench Data
Measurement of Bending Stress Using Strain Gauges
Measurement of Bending Stress Using Strain Gauges Data
Microscopic Examination
Specimen Preparation
Tensile Strength
Tensile Strength Data
Young’s Modulus
Young’s Modulus Data

Exams

– Forthcoming