ME 207 – Material Science I

Chapter 2
Design Engineering & Material Selection

Dr. İbrahim H. Yılmaz

http://web.adanabtu.edu.tr/iyilmaz

Automotive Engineering
Adana Science and Technology University
 Introduction
h Design of new products and development of the existing ones is
the essential purpose of engineering. In the course of designing
any machine element or component, an engineer has to consider
many requirements.

h Selection of the material from which a part is to be produced has

always been a predominant factor in the overall performance of
a design because of its influence on other factors.

h Therefore, it is not usually possible to make the final decision on

geometry and dimensions of a part until the material is selected.

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 Fundamental Aspects of Design
h Designer must be careful in making the right distinction between demands
that are truly related to material properties and certain design features.

h For example, strength of a part depends upon strength of the material and
geometrical parameters. This does not mean that high strength materials
are needed to achieve the required strength of the part. Instead, designer
can prefer a weaker material but larger dimensions as long as there are no
space or weight restrictions. When such restrictions are tight, then strength
of material itself becomes considerably important.

h In addition, material selection has a great influence that selection of a totally

different material would result in a new design approach. Inevitably, chosing
the most suitable material is possible by good storehouse knowledge
concerning the material properties. The most decisive factor for making a
proper selection is the experience, which no book could provide.

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 Design Procedure
h A simple flow diagram of design thinking for material selection:

NEED FUNCTIONAL REQUIREMENTS DESIGN LIMITATIONS

! Order of Importance ! Production Requirements
! Level of Satisfaction ! Economic Requirements
! Failure Criteria ! Maintenance Requirements

FINAL CHOICE MATERIAL ALTERNATIVES PROBLEM DEFINITION

! Storehouse Knowledge ! Material Selection
! Experience

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 Design Procedure
h Every design effort is aimed at satisfying existent or potential need!.

h From analysis of the need, designer determines essential and desirable

features of the design, namely functional requirements!.

h As it is impossible to satisfy all requirements to the same degree, they

are arranged in the order of importance to identify areas of comprimise.

h Furthermore, a design must be in compliance with certain inevitable

design limitations!: Manufacturing, Money, Maintenance ( 3M rule!)

h Arising from nature of design, sometimes functional requirements

and sometimes design limitations dictate the properties to be desired
in the material for the design work at hand.

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 Functional Requirements
h They concern mechanical properties of material (e.g. strength, stiffness,
resilience, toughness, hardness, etc.) and physical properties (such as
coefficient of expansion, thermal and electrical conductivity, and so on).

h Production requirements are logically the first to be considered. Designer

must consider functional merits of the material as well as its ability to be
manufactured (i.e. machined, shaped, formed, cast, welded, and so on).

h Economic requirements are based on the final product cost composed of

raw material cost and production costs with overheads. The product cost
should be as high as the customers can pay for it.

h Finally, maintenance requirements (i.e. whether replacement or repair is

required) depend upon size of the part, extent of possible damage, facilities
of the customers, and the acceptable level of costs.
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 Production Requirements
h A design is realized only after it is produced. Hence, the designer must be
aware of the fact that production is carried out according to drawings and
specifications, where the production group may give useful hints.
h Material selection depends upon such factors: the functional demands,
how many parts will be produced, which materials can be used, and
what properties are related for that design.

h The production requirements can be gathered in the following groups:

1. Machinability
2. Formability
3. Castability
4. Suitability for Compacting
5. Weldability
6. Heat Treatability
7. Adaptability to Special Processes
8. Adaptability to Forms of Protection
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 Production Requirements ! Machinability
h Machining is shaping a part by removing the unwanted material in the form
of chips to achieve the desired shape. Turning, milling, drilling, boring
are the familiar examples of chip removal processes. In addition; grinding,
honing and lapping remove the material with abrasives.

h Speed of chip removal, tool life and quality of machined surfaces are used
jointly to describe machinability!. Quantitatively speaking, a highly
machinable material is the one that allows the maximum amount of chip
removal with the minimum tool wear, yielding a high surface quality.

h The above factors vary not only from one material to another, but also from
one machining process to another.

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 Production Requirements ! Formability
h Forming processes (like rolling, forging, stamping, pressing, drawing)
provide special advantage of enabling the desired shape to be obtained
with ease, without machining the surfaces that are not mating. Hence, this
is a great advantage over chip removal processes.

h Another advantage of such processes is that, unlike casting process, most

engineering materials are amenable to forming. However, the main problem
is that they are costly processes.

h During forming operations, the material is subjected to considerable degree

of deformation affecting its mechanical properties. This can be beneficial or
detrimental depending upon type of the material as well as type and extent
of the forming process.

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 Production Requirements ! Castability
h Casting is used to produce finished parts as well as intermediate forms
requiring further operations. In theory, any material that can be melted can
also be cast. However, in practice, few metals are truly amenable to casting.

h Casting has a special advantage to produce parts with sophisticated shape

especially in large numbers, which usually cannot be possible by the other
processes (e.g. the carburetor of a car).

h The main difficulty is that the process is quite dependent on the design.
Shape of casting must enable the molten metal to fill all cavities in the mold.
As a metal shrinks upon freezing, the molten metal must be constantly fed
into mold during solidification to compensate the shrinkage, otherwise
spongy metal is obtained. Hence, designer must decide type of the material
and type of the casting process together.

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 Production Requirements ! Suitability for Compacting
h This is required when the part is to be produced by powder metallurgy.
The metal powder is compacted in a die to the desired form, and then
sintered to fuse the powder particles together.

h Most metals and alloys can be used in this process, but only few of them
are economically justified. This process is the best way to produce parts
from brittle and very hard metals.

h Although the intricate forms with desirable mechanical properties can be

produced, availability of the required metal in powder form and high capital
investment are the main limitations.

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 Production Requirements ! Weldability
h Welding process is not only used to produce large and complex parts by
welding the simpler parts together (like frames of certain machine tools), but
also used for maintenance and repairs (i.e. fixing broken or worn parts).

h Weldability! does not mean ability of metals to be welded, it represents

the relative ability of metals (usually steels) to be welded without cracking.

h Production of especially large parts by welding is regarded as an alternative

to casting when they are needed in few numbers. However, the successful
production of complicated shapes by welding demands a special design
approach (like in case of casting) as well as a careful planning of stress-
relief treatments and operations.

h Two special welding techniques (electron beam welding and laser beam
welding utilizing beams to generate heat of fusion) have made it possible to
weld hardenable and heat treated steels.

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 Production Requirements ! Heat Treatability
h Heat treatment causes structural changes in metals to improve essential
mechanical properties, change grain size and relieve residual stresses.
h Hardenability (depth of hardening)! is desirable material property if the aim
of heat treatment is to increase strength and/or hardness. It is dependent upon
material"s rate of hardening.
h Some ferrous and nonferrous alloys can be hardened by age (precipitation)
hardening. The alloy is heated to certain temperature at which it exists as
homogeneous solid-solution phase, then cooled rapidly (quenched). Finally, it is
held at room temperature (natural aging) or above the room temperature
(artificial aging) to allow precipitation of solid- solution.

h Heat treatment is also used to alter surface properties of ferrous alloys. Rapid
heating of surface by induction/flame followed by quenching (induction/flame
hardening) produces a hardened surface while the interior of material is softer.
h In other thermal surface treatments (e.g. carburizing, cyaniding, nitriding,
carbonitriding, chromizing), a substance diffuses into the heated metal surface.
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 Production Requirements ! Adaptability to Special Processes
h Many intricate and special parts are produced by chipless manufacturing
processes.

h In chemical milling, material is removed by etching reaction of chemical

solutions with metal. It can also be used on plastics and glass.

h Electrochemical machining (ECM) employs electroplating process, where

the tool (with inverse shape of part) is cathode and the workpiece is anode.

h Electrodischarge machining (EDM) cuts metal by action of high-energy

electric sparks or electrical discharges.

h Laser beam cutting is a recently developed cutting process using laser.

h These processes are not fast methods of production. High capital costs and
slow production speeds make them suitable only when parts to be produced
are of special nature and are few in numbers.

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 Production Requirements ! Adaptability to Forms of Protection

h In many cases, material properties could not meet some functional demands,
especially arising from environmental conditions. As high quality materials for
this purpose are too expensive, designer may use finishes and coatings.

h Such finishes and coatings are employed in order to:

ƒ protect the base material against hostile environmental conditions.
ƒ give functional properties that are not attainable within base material.
ƒ improve the appearance of product by colour, polish, or decoration.

h Coatings may be classified under four main groups:

1."Organic coatings: resins, pigments, lacquers, varnishes, paints, dispersion
coatings, emulsion coatings, hot-melt coatings, plastic powder coatings
2."Metallic coatings: electroplates, chemical-deposition and sprayed-metal
coatings, hot-dip coatings, diffusion coatings, vapour-deposited coatings
3."Conversion coatings: phosphate, chromate, and chemical oxide coatings
4."Ceramic coatings: vitreous (glass-like), porcelain, and ceramic coatings

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 Economic Requirements
h Design requirements concerning the cost are simple: keep them as low as
possible without impairing the essential design features
h Cost of a design comprises production costs (built up from material and
processing), labour costs, and capital costs.
h The foremost economic factor is availability. Candidate materials in a design
project must be available in market. Expensive delays will be incurred due
to supply difficulties. Market search is a must before final material selection.

h Actual cost of raw material is cost of material used in part plus cost of scrap
material. Adjustment of dimensions (whenever possible) to available stock
sizes is a regular design procedure to reduce scrap and production time.

h Production costs depend on number of operations, amount of skilled labor,

time in each operation. In most cases, surface finish is important for part"s
performance and apperance. Thus, secondary finishing operations may be
needed in such cases.
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 Maintenance Requirements
h Maintenance covers activities that are necessary but not directly concerned
with operation or use (such as cleaning, lubrication, adjustment, overhaul
and repair of damaged/worn equipment).
h In principle, durability is considered in design as a user requirement. It is
annoying that a recently purchased product does not work any longer,
which causes inconvenience for customer, heavy repair bills, or scapping of
product. So, the complaints about service life and cost must be minimized.
h How often and at what cost are inevitable questions to be answered
during the design stage; requiring a firm decision on whether replacement
or repair, or both will be envisaged. When frequent replacements are
envisaged, part must be cheap so that it is more logical than repair. If repair
is envisaged, the material must lend itself to acceptable forms of repair.

h Non-stick frying pans and self cleaning ovens are recent examples of
#how use of a new material facilitates maintenance$. Plastic surfaces not
only improve apperance, but also facilitate #cleaning$ problems.
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 Failure
h Failure happens when a design is no longer able to satisfy any of functional
requirements. Failures not only cause costly damage, but may lead to loss
of many lives as in airplane crashes. A conceptual understanding of failure
is necessary to utilize the material properties safely and economically.

h In most design problems, primary concern should be reducing the possibility

of a premature failure in service. Service life ranges from seconds (in case
of space applications) to many years (in case of bridges).

h Possible failure types during service are excessive deformation, fracture,

inordinate wear, and deterioration. In practice, it is impossible to predict
failure mode of part under severe service conditions. Some failures happen
soon after the part is in service, which are covered by factor of safety!.

h Time dependent failures are difficult or even impossible to avoid by applying

factor of safety. In such cases, parts are withdrawn from service and tested
for reliability. Such specific data are not found in general reference books.
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 Failure ! Excessive Deformation
h Gross-scale yielding! and buckling! are the types of this failure. Little
elastic deformation of an element in precision machines may cause problem
while plastic deformation of an element in a building may be feasible.

h Excessive deformation may also be responsible for the critical vibration of a

part under dynamic load, which does not only disturbs the function but also
leads to the complete destruction of part.

h Failure by excessive deformation can be #immediate$ or #time-dependent$

(like creep! which is significant in high-temp. applications).
h In many cases, the failure criterion is based on material"s strength although
a failure by excessive deformation is implied. This is due to the fact that
#stress approach$ is more universal for covering the fracture aspect.

h It must be remembered that when a failure by inordinate elastic deformation

is of issue, design approach must always be based on deformation analysis
since the results shall be compatible with functional requirements.
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 Failure ! Fracture
h When analyzing fracture failure modes, preceding deformation is important.
If failure occurs following a large deformation, such fractures are called
ductile fracture!, which is very not common in engineering applications.
In contrast, a fracture with no/little prior deformation is brittle fracture!.
h Many materials fail by fracture in three ways: sudden brittle fracture,
fatigue (progressive) fracture, time-dependent (creep) fracture.
h Brittle fracture is not only experienced by brittle materials. Higher rate or
sudden application of load and presence of a complex stress may cause
ductile-to-brittle transition (embrittlement) of a material.
h Fatigue failure (the most common failure in many applications) is a highly
localized microscopic phenomenon. It occurs in parts that are subjected to
repeated (cyclic) stresses even if they are below the yield point of material.
h Creep failure (stress rupture) occurs when a material is loaded at higher
temperatures for a long time. In polymeric materials, it can occur even at
normal temperatures and under relatively low stresses.
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 Failure ! Wear
h Wear results from the action of abrasive or other forces on surface of a part.
It is manifested by a loss of surface material (either in regular or irregular
form) which causes change in the part dimensions.

h Wear is a complex subject due to many variables involved in the process.

Lubrication, condition of surface and type of material with which the part is
in contact are the most effective factors.

h There is no quantitative test or criterion of wear. Thus, design evaluations

are based on past experience more than anything else.

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 Failure ! Deterioration
h Deterioration (loss of original properties) may occur in certain applications.
Most common examples are caused by the reaction of environment (such
as corrosion! and oxidation!) in which materials operate.

h No material is completely resistant to liquid or gas. #Liquid/gas absorption$

may cause embrittlement!, a special problem in nuclear applications
because of danger of nuclear substances.

h Speaking of nuclear applications, material properties are significantly

altered by irradiation!. In some cases, the effects of irradiation can be
beneficial as it causes an increase in yield strength.

h Fungus or other growths! cause deterioration in strength and/or other

material properties (noticable in wood and some plastics), or loss of
efficiency of the whole system (some sea bacteria on a ship body).

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 Proper Failure Analysis
h Proper application of failure analysis provides a valuable checklist to design
problems and material limitations.

h A good design is the one that answers the need where the requirements are
slightly exceeded by capabilities of the design. Under-designing! tends to
fail in certain ways whereas over-designing! is not only economically
pointless but also unapplicable or useless.

h Fundamental factors related to failure or shortening of service life are listed

below (the failure may be due to any or combination of them):
ƒ Problematic design
ƒ Improper selection of material
ƒ Heat treatment
ƒ Fabrication
ƒ Improper machining and assembly

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 Material Selection
h The first step in material selection process is to reduce the number of
candidate materials to manageable number. Past experiences, investigation
of materials currently used for similar designs, existing standards, codes or
legal requirements help to narrow the selection list.
h Design philosophy! has important role in screening material alternatives.
It determines the general trend of design varying in different industries,
countries, and companies. For instance, due to foreign currency issues,
relying on domestically produced materials can be a design philosophy.
h It is difficult to define design philosophy. For instance, the design philosophy
applied for the products in car industry may be similar. However, aircraft or
space industry needs specific design philosophy requiring certain criteria:
ƒ Strength must be!combined with lightness.
ƒ Accuracy and design efficiency are more important than cost.
ƒ Life!in!operating hours is!relatively limited.
ƒ Frequent and careful maintenance must be!ensured.
ƒ Wide extremes of!service!conditions must be!taken into account. 23
 Material Selection
h Measures of value!, that are highly dependent on design philosophy, are
standards by which the merits of a material can be weighed. Its proper
establishment provides a clever and economical material selection.

h In an engineering design, the benefits are often based on intangible factors.

The most universal method for measures of value is in monetary terms
such as comparison of the product price with its rivals.

h However, the designer must know that incorrect comparison leads to biased
results and misleading benefit analysis. For instance, it is not correct to look
at only the cost per unit weight of raw material without considering how
much material is actually required to produce a certain part. The example in
the next page illustrates this problem.

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 Material Selection ! An Example
A cylindrical part of 500 mm long will carry an axial load of 600 kg.
Material A with raw material cost of 100 TL/kg can be stressed up to
15 kg/mm2, while Material B with raw material cost of 150 TL/kg can
be stressed up to 25 kg/mm2. Both materials have the same density of
7.8 10-6 kg/mm3. Which material must be preferred based on cost?
1 Area Load Strength 3 Weight Volume Density
   
Part A  600 kg  
15 kg /mm2  40 mm2 Part A  20 cm  7.8 g /cm 
3 3
156 g

Part B  600 kg   25 kg /mm 

2
24 mm2 Part B 12 cm  7.8 g /cm 
3 3
93.6 g

Volume Area Length

2
4 Cost Weight Material Cost
 
 
Part A  0.4 cm   50 cm 
2
20 cm 3
Part A  0.156 kg 100 TL /kg  15.60 TL
Part B  0.24 cm   50 cm 
2
12 cm3 Part B  0.0936 kg 150 TL /kg  14.04 TL

5 Material B should be preferred (although it is more expensive per unit weight)

 Performance Rating Method
h The designer must ask these questions: !What should be the desirable
properties of the candidate materials?" and !How important is each and
every of these desirable features?"

h Hence, a more difficult exercise is to determine the relative order! and

degree of importance! for the desirable properties. The process starts
with drawing a matrix of comparisons to compare such properties in pairs.
For this purpose, the properties must be listed and given a code number.

h Suppose that there h For this purpose,

1 2 3 4 5
are five properties: a square matrix is
1
(1) raw material cost drawn. Note that
the property list is 2
(2) wear resistance
not in the order of 3
(3) castability
importance. 4
(4) machinability
(5) heat conductivity 5
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 Performance Rating Method
h All pairs of attributes are compared for relative
1 2 3 4 5
importance in the form of column-row such as:
1 # X X #
1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5, 2-1, 2-3, and so on
2 XX XX # #
h The following marks are put in the matrix: 3 X # X X
XX : 1 is more important than 2 4 X XX X X
X : no decision is made in favour of 1 or 3. 5 XX XX X X
" : 2 is less important than 1. 6 6X 4X 5X 3X 2X

h After all comparisons are made, the marks in each column are summed so
that the order of importance of properties can be obtained. From the table,
property 1 has the first ranking with 6X.

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 Performance Rating Method
h In order to weigh the merits, the designer must also devise a value scale
for each property (i.e. measures of value must be established).
h Here, raw material cost is only 6/5 times more important than castability,
but it may not be the exact mathematical equivalent of actual importance.
So, level of desirability! must also be defined by assigning certain
numerical values that provide a scale for comparison.

h For instance, such scale may be devised: (5) most desirable, (4) highly
desirable, (3) desirable, (2) slightly desirable, (1) least desirable. However,
a set of numbers 10, 8, 5, 3, 1 is usually employed (as below) due to its
close approximation to a linear scale:

Order of Importance Merit Ranking Measure of Value

1 (6X) Raw material cost 10
2 (5X) Castability 8
3 (4X) Wear resistance 8
4 (3X) Machinability 5
5 (2X) Heat conductivity 3
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 Performance Rating Method
h Standing of a certain material among candidate materials is determined
according to its performance rating (R)!. To calculate this, the designer
has to devise a grading system for performance factor!.

h The scale for performance factor is also optional. It can be from the poorest
to the best (e.g. 0 to 5, 0 to 10, or even 0 to 1).

h Performance rating (Rm) of a candidate N N

material is calculated by the measure of Rm ¦C G i im ¦C i
value (Ci) and performance factor (Gim): i 1 i 1

h After the performance rating for all candidate materials is determined,

designer can specify the highest ranking material for the design. Obviously,
a systematic and objective selection is provided by the above method on
the condition that values of C & G are established in an unbiased manner.

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 Performance Rating Method
h The comparison table for two materials (A & B):
Measure# Performance#Factor#(Gi) Ranking#(CiGi)
Level#of#
of#Value#
Property List Importance A B A B
(Ci)
Raw Material Cost 6 10 4 5 40 50

Castability 5 8 4 4 32 32

Wear Resistance 4 8 2 3 16 24

Machinability 3 5 3 3 15 15

Heat Conductivity 2 3 4 3 12 9

Ȉ =#34 Ȉ =#115 Ȉ =#130

h Finally, the material having the highest ranking is chosen:

RA = 115 / 34 = 3,38

RB = 130 / 34 = 3,82 (9)

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 Checklist for a Systematic Material Selection
1. Check the existing standards, codes or legal requirements.
2. Make a functional analysis and determine the functional requirements.
3. Perform a failure analysis and determine in how many ways the designed
part can fail to fulfil these functions.
4. Determine the essential parameters.
5. Establish the measures of value and the performance factors.
6. Analyse similar designs and determine the list of materials that can be
used, paying attention to the design philosophy.
7. Screen all candidate materials and discard those which do not possess
the essential properties. !Backward" method of selection would be to look
for materials which possess the essential properties.
8. Assign a performance factor to each pertinent properties of candidate
materials to see how closely it meets the desirable material properties.
9. Use the equation of perfomance rating (Rm) for each material.
10. The material with the highest performance rating is the optimum material.
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