MECH/BIOM 532:

Materials Issues in Mechanical Design Homework #0 Fall 2020

Homework # 0 - Not Collected or Graded

Problem 1:
Materials A and B are both metallically bonded solids at room temperature. Based on only
the Binding Energy vs. Distance plot name three (3) material properties that can be compared.
Compare and contrast these material properties for the two unknown metals using the Binding
Energy vs. Distance information. Explain your reasoning completely.

Repulsion
A
Binding Energy
B

Attraction

Distance

Figure 1: The binding energy curves for two hypothetical materials A and B.

Problem 2:
Metals are often described as strong and ductile, ceramics as weak and brittle while polymers
as pliable and tough.

(a) Explain why metals are ductile.

(b) Explain why ceramics are brittle.
(c) Explain why thermoplastic can be reheated, reformed and recycled.
(d) Draw a typical stress strain curve for a metal, ceramic and thermoplastic. Describe the
differences in mechanical behavior that you are showing in your plots in terms of the types
of atomic bonding.

Problem 3: Throughout history material properties have been adjusted to make them more
suitable for various applications. One parameter that is often adjusted is the strength. Name 3
common strengthening mechanisms used for metals and discuss each based on the fundamentals
of materials science.

Problem 4: The compressed-air tank AB has an inner diameter of 450 mm and a uniform wall
thickness of 6 mm. Knowing that the gage pressure inside the tank is 1.2 MPa, determine the
maximum normal stress and the maximum in-plane shearing stress at point a on the top of the
tank. You may ignore the out-of-plane transverse shear stress.

Problem 5: For a large range of temperatures, the Young’s modulus of aluminum can be approx-
imated as: E = E0 + E 0 · T . The following data was collected for aluminum. Determine the values
of E0 and E 0 .

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MECH/BIOM 532:
Materials Issues in Mechanical Design Homework #0 Fall 2020

Figure 2: The compressed air tank AB of problem #4.

T (K) E (GPa)
0 70.0
100 64.4
200 60.3
300 50.8
400 41.7
500 31.2

Problem 6: The diffusivity for magnesium in aluminum has been recorded as a function of
temperature as shown in the table below. The diffusivity depends on the activation energy for
diffusion, Q, through the relationship: D = D0 exp −Q


RT
where R is the universal gas constant and
T is the absolute temperature. Determine Q and D0 for the diffusion of magnesium in aluminum.

T (K) D (cm2 /s)

928 5.97 × 10−8
861 1.46 × 10−8
803 4.20 × 10−9
752 1.05 × 10−9
706 2.70 × 10−10
667 8.12 × 10−11

Problem 7: The Ramberg-Osgood equation relates the strain to the imposed stress and will be
introduced later in this class as:
σ  σ 1/n
ε= + (1)
E K
Let’s use a simple model of aluminum where E = 73.1 GPa, n=0.237, K = 384 MPa and plot the
stress strain curve from 0 to 10% strain.

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MECH/BIOM 532:
Materials Issues in Mechanical Design Homework #0 Fall 2020

Problem 8: Now, lets determine the amount of strain energy density, ω stored in the material in
Problem #7 using numerical integration. This is just the area under the stress-strain curve, i.e.
Z 0.1
ω= σdε (2)
0

For some, this might be a tricky math problem and you might not know how to start. Let’s fix
that by noting that the stress and strain are related:
σ  σ 1/n
ε= + (3)
E K
so that:
dσ  σ 1/n−1 dσ
dε = + 1/n (4)
E K K
which allows us to re-write this equation as:
Z σ0   σ 1/n 
σ
ω= + 1/n dσ (5)
0 E K

which is analytically:

σ02 1/n  σ0 1/n+1

ω= +K (6)
2E 1/n + 1 K

and σ0 = σ(ε = 0.1). While we have the analytical solution, evaluate this integral numerically and
show that it equals the analytical result.

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