Materials Science and Engineering

Spring 2023

Worksheet 5
Name: date: 2023

Our fifth week:

In past weeks, we have studied the structure of pure and perfectly ordered crystalline materials. We
will start the study of a more realistic description of engineering materials, so, you are expected to
know, identify, and be able to quantify the different kinds of defects or imperfections in crystals. Our
aim now is to get to know and quantitatively describe the most important defects in the crystal
structure of solids: vacancies, interstitial atoms, substitutional atoms, dislocations, and grain
boundaries. You will also start to learn how these defects modify the properties of real crystalline
materials. Later you will learn some strategies to control the type and number of defects to obtain the
desired structure and properties that will lead to the required performance in specific applications.
In general, imperfections or defects distort the structure at different scales, and this can have
dramatic effects in the behavior (properties) of materials.
Please read the fourth chapter on Askeland 6 th ed. and/or Callister 7th ed. books, analyze the ppt
presentation. The following videos may be of help:
https://youtu.be/BV1cxwxnhPs, https://youtu.be/TxJOP3hA6To , https://youtu.be/-t6btGjGKYU ,
https://youtu.be/Hz26kMScIJU

Remember that you are expected to attend our Tuesday session having solved (ideally completely) the
following exercises.
Please type your answers in blue. You do not need to add a cover page.
----------------------

1.- Considering what you have learned so far, write down and discuss from a quantitatively point of
view, some (three, for example) relationships between structure and properties.
a)

b)

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 Materials Science and Engineering
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c)

2.- Give the technical translation to English of the following terms in Spanish: fronteras de grano,

_______________________; aleación: alloy, cloro: chlorine, cloruro: chloride; dislocación de borde:

Edge dislocation, dislocación de tornillo: __________________, esfuerzo de corte:

___________________, macla: ______________, microscopio óptico: __________________________,

microscopio electrónico: _______________________________, vacancia: vacancy ,

interstitial:____________, temperatura ambiente:_________________.

3.- Write down the Arrhenius equation for the number of vacancies in a crystalline material, clearly
define every variable and/or constant involved, including the appropriate units.

4.- Consider a Mexican peso coin, assume it is made of pure copper and that its volume is 1 cm 3,
calculate, using Excel, the number of vacancies at the temperatures indicated in the table (see pages
115-116 in Ch. 4 of Askeland’s textbook) (If you prefer you can use Python, R or any other software,
you can always use your calculator, but in these times it seems a thing of the past).

T (°C) T (Kelvins) nv
25

100

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200

400

500
600

700
800

900
1000
Tm (___)

Write down your comments:

5.- Plot the number of vacancies in the Mexican peso coin versus absolute temperature (You can use
Excel, Python, R or any other software). Pay attention to the scale of the y-axis (paste your graphic
below).

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 Materials Science and Engineering
Spring 2023

6.- (a) Calculate the radius, in Å, of the void at the center of the FCC iron unit cell. Elaborate and
include a proper sketch.

(b) Write a comment:

7.- (a) Compare your result for the radius of the void at the center of the FCC-iron unit cell with the
radius of the carbon atom (remember to use blue color).
The void radius is: ________, whereas the atomic radius of carbon is ___________, this means that ….

b) Knowing that steel is basically iron with a certain percentage of carbon (typically less than 1 % in
weight), write a comment considering your results.

8.- Let suppose you find that a sample of iron at room temperature has one interstitial carbon atom in
every unit cell. (a) Calculate the atomic percentage of carbon in the alloy. (b) Calculate the weight
percentage of carbon in the alloy.

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Write a comment:

9.- Sketch the preferred plane and directions (showing the distribution of atoms), indicating their
Miller indices, for the motion of dislocations in FCC metals such as ________ , _________ , and
__________.

Write a comment:
10.- Calculate the Burger´s vector (magnitude, direction) for your first example of FCC metals.

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Write a comment:
11.- Find the Burgers vector for the following ____________ (screw?, edge?) dislocation by tracing a
Burgers circuit (see example 4-6 in page127 of Askeland’s book) (You can also watch this video :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVXSblJRBbU from10:10 to 14.47, you can ignore the rest of the
video)

Write a comment:
12.- Estimate the total number of grains on the face of a Mexican peso coin. Assume the grains

correspond to ASTM grain size number 7. ASTM stands for _______________ __________________

____________________ ______________________.

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Spring 2023

Your calculations here:

Write a comment:

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13.- Complete the following table (use your own words):

Crystalline defects Effect on properties

Vacancies
When there are vacancies it means that atoms or ions are missing, they
cause more disorder in entropy, in the measurement of energy that
cannot be usable, so there is stability in temperature

Interstitials
Interstitial defects are made by an impurity at the interstitial site, that
is, in the space where there are gaps between normal atoms, or by an
atom that is not in a lattice position, with this defect the resistance of
the materials is increased. metallic.

Substitutionals
This type of defect occurs when an atom or ion is replaced by another
of a different type, altering the crystal; these atoms will often increase
the resistance of the metallic material.

Dislocations
Line defects are known as dislocations, they serve to explain the
deformation and hardening of metallic materials and help determine
the mechanical resistance of materials.

Grain boundaries
It is a general planar defect that separates regions of different crystal
orientation within a solid. These helps determine the properties of a
material, for example: having smaller grains (more grain boundary
surface area) makes a material stronger.

Pores, cracks
They are considered as macroscopic defects; they generally occur on a
much larger scale than the defects and are caused in some
manufacturing process of the material. These cause the material to
become weaker.

Precipitates
The precipitates are small inclusions of a different material that affects
the line defects, increasing the internal tension of the material, thus
preventing the movement of defects so that the elastic tension of the
material increases.

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 Materials Science and Engineering
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14.- A copper- zinc alloy has the following properties, (a) plot the data (using Excel or another
software).

Your plot here:

(b) discuss the observed behavior using the Materials Science Tetrahedron (write at least 400
characters).

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 Materials Science and Engineering
Spring 2023

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