Engineering Materials

MT JC ZC236
Lecture 3
BITS Pilani
Pilani Campus Shashank Tiwari
Content

• Structure of Materials

- Metallic crystal structure

- Crystallographic points, planes and direction

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Metallic crystal structure

➢ Metals are usually (poly)crystalline; although formation of

amorphous metals is possible by rapid cooling

➢The atomic bonding in metals is non-directional ⇒ no

restriction on numbers or positions of nearest-neighbor atoms
⇒ large number of nearest neighbors and dense atomic
packing

➢The most common types of unit cells are

• faced-centered cubic (FCC)
• body-centered cubic (BCC)
• hexagonal close-packed (HCP).

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 Metallic crystal structure
Face-Centered Cubic (FCC) Crystal Structure
➢ Atoms are located at each of the corners and on the centers of all the faces of cubic
unit cell

➢ Cu, Al, Ag, Au have this crystal structure

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 Metallic crystal structure
Body-Centered Cubic (BCC) Crystal Structure
➢Atom at each corner and at center of cubic
unit cell

➢Cr, α-Fe, Mo have this crystal structure

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 Metallic crystal structure
The Hexagonal Close-Packed Crystal Structure
➢ Six atoms form regular hexagon, surrounding one
atom in center. Another plane is situated halfway up unit
cell (c-axis), with 3 additional atoms situated at
interstices of hexagonal (close-packed) planes

➢ Cd, Mg, Zn, Ti have this crystal structure

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Metallic crystal structure

EXERCISE
Calculate the volume of an FCC unit cell in terms of the atomic radius R.
Calculate the atomic packing factor for FCC crystal

VC = a3 = 16R32

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Crystal Structure

Crystallographic Points, Directions, and Planes

The position of any point located within a unit
cell may be specified in terms of its
coordinates as fractional multiples of the unit
cell edge lengths

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Crystal Structure

Crystallographic Points, Directions, and Planes

A crystallographic direction is defined as a line between two points, or a vector.

1. A vector of convenient length is positioned such that it

passes through the origin of the coordinate system. Any
vector may be translated throughout the crystal lattice
without alteration, if parallelism is maintained.

2. The length of the vector projection on each of the three axes is

determined; these are measured in terms of the unit cell
dimensions a, b, and c.

3. These three numbers are multiplied or divided by a common

factor to reduce them to the smallest integer values.

4. The three indices, not separated by commas, are enclosed in

square brackets, thus: [uvw]. The u, v, and w integers correspond
to the reduced projections along the x, y, and z axes, respectively.
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Crystal Structure

Exercise
Determine the indices for the direction shown in the figure

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Crystal Structure

Exercise
Draw a [110 ] direction within a cubic unit cell.

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Crystal Structure

Crystallographic Points, Directions, and Planes

1. If the plane passes through the selected
origin, either another parallel plane is
constructed or a new origin is taken.
2. The length of the planar intercept for each
axis is determined in terms of the lattice
parameters a, b, and c.
3. The reciprocals of these numbers are taken.
A plane that parallels an axis may be
considered to have an infinite intercept.
4. If necessary, these three numbers are
changed to the set of smallest integers
5. Finally, the integer indices, not separated by
commas, are enclosed within parentheses,
thus: (hkl).

Engineering Materials, Birla Institute of Technology and Science ,Pilani

Crystal Structure

Crystallographic Points, Directions, and Planes

Engineering Materials, Birla Institute of Technology and Science ,Pilani

Crystal Structure

Crystallographic Points, Directions, and Planes

Engineering Materials, Birla Institute of Technology and Science ,Pilani

Crystal Structure

Crystallographic Points, Directions, and Planes

The atomic arrangement for a crystallographic plane, depends on the crystal structure

Atomic packing of a FCC (110) plane.

Atomic packing of a BCC (110) plane.

Engineering Materials, Birla Institute of Technology and Science ,Pilani

Crystal Structure
Coordinate system in hexagonal crystals
• Hexagonal crystals will not have the same set of indices
as cubic system.
• A four-axis coordinate axis system for a hexagonal unit
cell has been established, called Miller–Bravais
coordinate system
• The three a1, a2 and a3 axes are all contained within a
single plane
(called the basal plane) and are at angles 120°to one
another.
• The z axis is perpendicular to this basal plane.
• Direction and plane indices, which are obtained as
described above, will be denoted by four indices as
[uvtw] and (hkil) respectively.

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Crystal Structure
Coordinate system in hexagonal crystals (Direction)
Conversion from the three-index system to the
four-index system

is accomplished by the following formulas:

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 Crystal Structure
Coordinate system in hexagonal crystals
Example:
Indices for the direction

• One of the three parallelepipeds comprising the

hexagonal cell is labeled with letters A through H
• Determine projections of the direction vector on
the a1, a2 and z axes
• Respective projections are a, a and c ,
which become 1, 1, and 1 in terms of the unit cell
parameters

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Crystal Structure
Coordinate system in hexagonal crystals
Example:

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Crystal Structure
Coordinate system in hexagonal crystals (Plane)
• Miller–Bravais system convention leads to the four-index (hkil) scheme,
• The three h, k, and l indices are identical for both indexing systems
• There is some redundancy in that i is determined by the sum of h and k through

Example:
• Plane intersects the a1 axis at a distance a from
the origin of the coordinate axes system
• Its intersections with the a2 and z axes are –a
and c, respectively.
• These intersections are 1, -1 and 1.
h=1, k=-1, l=1
i=-(h+k)= - (1-1) =0
• Therefore the (hkil) indices are

• Means that this plane parallels the axis.

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Crystal Structure

LINEAR DENSITIES

Linear density (LD) is defined as the number of atoms per unit length whose centers lie
on the direction vector for a specific crystallographic direction;

determine the linear density of the [110] direction

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Crystal Structure

PLANAR DENSITIES

Planer density (PD) is defined the number of atoms per unit area that are centered on a
particular crystallographic plane;

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Crystal Structure

VOLUME DENSITIES
Volume density (VD) is defined the number of atoms per unit area that are
centered on a particular crystallographic plane;

VD

Where,
n- number of atoms per unit cell
A- atomic weight
Vc- volume of unit cell
NA- Avogadro’s number

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 Structure of materials
Anisotropy
➢Different directions in a crystal have different
packing. This causes anisotropy in the
properties of crystals, for instance, the
deformation depends on the direction in which
a stress is applied.

➢In some polycrystalline materials, grain

orientations are random, so bulk material
properties are isotropic

➢Some polycrystalline materials have grains

with preferred orientations (texture), so
properties are dominated by those relevant to
the texture orientation and the material
exhibits anisotropic properties

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Structure of materials

Polymorphism and Allotropy

Some materials may exist in more than one crystal structure, this is called
polymorphism. If the material is an elemental solid, it is called allotropy.
An example of allotropy is carbon, which can exist as diamond, graphite,
and amorphous carbon.

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Practice problems:

1. Calculate the atomic packing density or atomic packing factor for a HCP
crystal structure
2. Determine the indices for the following planes and directions

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Science ,Pilani
 Thank You

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