EEEN 

3030  Engineering Materials
Material Selection & Design

All lecture contents and figures are cited or adapted from the following source 
unless specified.
Author: Ashby, M. F.
Title: Materials selection in mechanical design, fourth edition / Michael F. Ashby.
Publisher: Amsterdam ; Boston : Elsevier ; Burlington, Mass. : Butterworth‐Heinemann, 
c2011 Edition: 4th ed. ISBN: 9781856176637, 1856176630

Available online book from CUHK library 

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The Role of Materials Selection in Design

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 The Role of Materials Selection in Design

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Source: Prof. Valencia @ UPRM course (INME 4011)
Some Materials Properties

Constant

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Source: Prof. Valencia @ UPRM course (INME 4011)
“To create products that perform their function effectively, 
safely, at acceptable cost”
What do we need to know about materials?

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Source: Prof. Valencia @ UPRM course (INME 4011)
Explore this website!!
http://www.matweb.com/

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The strategy for materials selection. The four main steps—
translation, screening, ranking, and supporting information

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 Creating charts for screening

Bar chart

Property
Bubble chart
Plotting and selection tools Property 1

X‐Axis Y‐Axis

List of properties

 Density
 Yield strength
 Young’s modulus
 etc. Property 2

Granta Design and Mike Ashby, 2018 www.teachingresources.grantadesign.com

 Screening with a CHART STAGE

Bar chart

Property
Box selection tool

Line/gradient selection tool

Bubble chart
Results Ranking Property 2
X out of 100 pass Prop 1 Prop 2
1
Material 1 2230 113
Material 2 2100 300
Material 3 1950 5.6
etc...

Property 1
Granta Design and Mike Ashby, 2018 www.teachingresources.grantadesign.com
 Screening with a LIMIT STAGE

General properties

Mechanical properties Min.         Max.

Young’s modulus 100 GPa

Glasses
Yield strength 50 MPa
Ceramics
Hardness 70 Vickers
Metals
Fracture toughness 16 MPa.m1/2
Foams

Polymers Thermal properties Min.     Max.

0.1 1 10 100 Max service temp 200 C

Insulator Thermal conductivity (W/m.K) Conductor
T-conductivity 1 W/m.K

T-expansion 10 10-6/C
Results Ranking
X out of 100 pass Prop 1 Prop 2 Specific heat 1600 J/kg.K

Material 1 2230 113 Electrical properties

Material 2 2100 300
Material 3 1950 5.6 Eco properties
etc...

Granta Design and Mike Ashby, 2018 www.teachingresources.grantadesign.com

 Screening with a TREE STAGE

Trees
MaterialUniverse
ProcessUniverse

MaterialUniverse
ProcessUniverse
Ceramics
JOINING and glasses

Materials that Hybrids: composites etc

SHAPING‐ Die casting
can be die-cast
Metals and alloys
SURFACE TREATMENT
Polymers and elastomers
Results
X out of 100 pass Selected records

Material 1 Shaping – Die casting

Material 2
Material 3
etc...

Granta Design and Mike Ashby, 2018 www.teachingresources.grantadesign.com

Material Indices
• Material Indices (MI) are groups of material properties (including 
cost) which are useful metrics for comparison of materials
• Maximize or minimize the MI
• The form of the MI depends on the functional requirements (F) and 
geometry (G).

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Source: Prof. Valencia @ UPRM course (INME 4011)
 What is a “material index”?

Component performance is limited by either:

 a single material property e.g. tensile strength, σts The
material index
 a material property group, e.g. modulus / density, E /  for the design
Where to find them?
To maximize
performance:
 First apply all
constraints
 Then select
(Offline) materials with the
biggest or
smallest index

The Performance Index Finder:

Granta Design and Mike Ashby, 2018 www.teachingresources.grantadesign.com

Check out Attributes available in the CES software

• Different levels could have different attributes
• If can’t find in the database, built your own database 
for materials selection

…..many
 Using the Performance Index
Method
1. Identify function, constraints, objective and free 
variables
2. Write equation for objective (the Performance Equation)

3. Define combination of material properties that maximize 
performance (the Material Index)

4. Use these for ranking

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Function, constraints, objectives and free variables

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 f

𝝆 𝝈𝒇
Minimize ( maximize (
𝝈𝒇 𝝆
f
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Source: Prof. Valencia @ UPRM course (INME 4011)
Material Index M:
All the materials that lie on a line of
constant perform equally well
M2

M1

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Function, constraints, objective, and free variables for the heat sink

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 Material index for a light, stiff beam

1. Objective: m = AL𝜌 Write design requirements as equations
2. Constraint: S =  (by appendix A)
𝜹
3. Solve for m by eliminating free variables A

𝐹 𝐶𝐸𝑰 𝐶𝐸 𝑨𝟐 𝐶𝐸𝐴
𝑆= 
𝛿 𝐿 𝐿 𝟏𝟐 12𝐿
/
 A = 
𝝆
 Solve for m = AL𝜌 = ()(
𝑬𝟏/𝟐
𝝆
Minimize m by minimizing (
𝑬𝟏/𝟐
𝑬𝟏/𝟐 These are related to materials properties 
Or by maximizing ( )
𝝆
No need to memorize 21
 Z=I/ym

No need to memorize 22
Material Index M:

= C

Larger C

All the materials that lie on a line of

/
constant perform equally well as a
light, stiff beam; those above the line
are better, those below, worse

If density increases by 10 times, 
Young’s modulus needs to increase 
by 100 times to make it as 
competitive.

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Material Index M:
Searching increasing values of materials index
Assign a suitable number

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Material Index M:
Searching increasing values of materials index
While fulfilling additional property limit, if any

/
A selection based on the index  together 
with the property limit E>50 GPa.
The shaded band with slope 2 has been 
positioned to isolate a subset of materials with
/
high  ; the horizontal one lies at E=50 GPa. 
The materials contained in the
search region become the candidates for the 
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next stage of the selection process
Case #1: Cost: structural materials for floor beams in buildings 

Write design requirements as equations Material Index M:
Objective: minimize cost
1. Objective: C= mCm = AL𝜌 · 𝐶 , Cm is unit cost of the material
2. Constraint: S =  (by appendix A)
3. Solve for C by eliminating free variables A
𝐹 𝐶𝐸𝐼 𝐶𝐸 𝐴 𝐶𝐸𝐴
𝑆= 
𝛿 𝐿 𝐿 12 12𝐿
/
 A = 
𝝆·𝑪𝒎
 Solve for C= mCm = AL𝜌 · 𝐶 = ()(
𝑬𝟏/𝟐
𝝆·𝑪 𝑬𝟏/𝟐
Minimize m by minimizing ( 𝟏/𝟐𝒎 Or by maximizing ( )
𝑬 𝝆·𝑪𝒎 26
27
Computer‐aided selection

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Materials for passive solar heating

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Materials for passive solar heating

area

Material Index M:
Write design requirements as equations
1. Objective: maximize thermal energy stored per unit area
The heat content, Q, per unit area of wall, when heated through a temperature interval T 
gives the objective function
2. Constraint: 12 hour time constraint t = 12h w: wall thickness, Cp: heat capacity
heat‐diffusion distance in time t (see Appendix A):
Distance (w) =  𝟐𝒂𝒕
𝒂 is thermal diffusivity (m2/s) 3. Solve for “Q” substitute and rearrange
𝒘𝟐 (eliminating free variable. Thickness, w =  𝟐𝒂𝒕)
𝒂
𝟐𝒕
since w ≤ 0.5m
𝒂 𝟑𝒙𝟏𝟎 𝟔 𝒎𝟐 /𝒔 thermal conductivity
Since 𝑎 thermal di𝑓𝑓𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦
density 𝐶 heat capacity
Increasing M

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 Materials for springs

Area = energy stored in the 
elastic deformation Wv =  𝜀𝜎 𝜎 ( energy per volume)
Incorporating constrains 𝜎 𝜎

Max Wv =

If weight, rather than volume, matters, we 
must divide this by the density 𝜌

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Log (M1) = 2log𝜎 logE Log E = 2log𝜎 logM1
Slope =2

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34
𝜎 1 𝐸 𝜎
· 𝜎 𝐸 log 𝟐 log 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑀2
𝜌 𝐸 𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑀2 2 log log 𝜌 𝜌
𝜌 𝜌 𝜌

Slope =2

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39
Case study: Materials selection for 
Thermoelectric Material

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 Thermoelectrics (TE)

V

Apply Heat
THot TCold
T

V
Seebeck Coefficient S
T

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 Current Applications

Cooling & Heating

Power Generation
RTG in Voyager (NASA)

Refrigeration
Waste Heat Recovery (Wine cooler) 42
 Thermoelectric Efficiency and ZT

Qin
Hot

P N P N

Cold
Qout

Figure of Merit:
S  Seebeck coefficient (V/K)
S T 2
ZT    Electrical conductivity (S/m)
k  Thermal conductivity (W/m-K)
k
S,  , k  T  Absolute Temperature (K)
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 Figure of Merit (ZT) Enhancement

S2

 S
S

 ke

k (= kelectron+ klattice )
ke S T 2
ZT 
kl k e  kl
Carrier Concentration

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 Nanocomposites
Nanoparticles can:
Reduce thermal conductivity (k) by scattering
the long-wavelength phonons;
S 2 T
ZT 
k
TEM Image of ErAs: InGaAs

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US patent: Method of Creating Micro‐Scale Silver Telluride Grains Covered with Bismuth Nanoparticles  US 20120225513 A1
 Nanostructuring can Enhance ZT

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Vineis et al., Advanced Materials, 22, 3970 (2010)