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Materials Selection

Property [bubble]
Charts

Prof. Eric Johlin

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

© Eric Johlin 2021-22
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Material property charts & relationships

Goals of this lecture

Be able to:
• Understand relationships between material
properties
• Identify common combinations of properties useful
for engineering considerations

• Develop a basis for more complex materials

selection (next lecture)

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Bar Charts – One Property

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Beyond one property

• Single property optimization is trivial

• More complicated:
• Attributes that depend on multiple properties (e.g.
speed of sound in material)
• Multi-property optimization (strong but also light)
• Conflicting property optimization (strong, light, thin)

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Bar Charts – One Property

Speed of sound?

?
Lecture 7 Materials Selection
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Find equation for our property

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Strategy for Materials Selection

“Bubble” plots of
two material
properties can
assist selection
objectives with a
more complex
material index

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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 Bubble Charts – Multiple Properties 8

cs = f(E, ρ)

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Attributes with multiple properties

Speed sound waves travel in a material (e.g.
shock propagation through a bar)
• Start with definition of the material index
• cs = (E/ρ)^0.5
• E = cs^2 * ρ Lines of constant cs

Log (E)
• log (E) = log (ρ) + 2 log (cs)
• Fix material index, cs
• x = log (ρ) Log (p)
• y = log (E)
• y=x à line of slope 1
Lecture 7 Materials Selection
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Attributes with multiple properties

Speed sound waves travel in a material (e.g.
shock propagation through a bar)
• Move perpendicular to the isocontours to
increase or decrease the material index
• cs = (E/ρ)^0.5
Lines of constant cs
• Can optimize cs for either

Log (E)
large or small values

Log (p)

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Young’s Modulus - Density

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Beyond one property

• Single property optimization is trivial

• More complicated:
• Attributes that depend on multiple properties (e.g.
speed of sound in material)
• Multi-property optimization (strong but also light)
• Conflicting property optimization (strong, light, thin)

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

© Eric Johlin 2021-22
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Young’s Modulus - Density

minimum weight, deflection-limited, design

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Young’s Modulus - Density

minimum weight, deflection-limited, design

• E.g. Light, stiff tie

rod

• Constraint may
provide a
required E (say
>10 GPa)
• Diameter is 3 cm
• Length is 1 m

• Objective then
optimize weight

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Young’s Modulus - Density

minimum weight, deflection-limited, design

More likely:
• Constraint is limit
stiffness
(load/displacement)
• Diameter is a free
parameter

• Objective minimize
weight
Use for material
selection (next lecture)

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

© Eric Johlin 2021-22
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Log plots show exponents as slopes

Linear Log-Log

y=x1/3

y=x1/3
1/3 y=x1/2

Log(y)
y=x1/2 1/2
y

y=x
y=x3
y=x y=x2

y=x2
3
y=x3 1 2

x Log(x)
x=linspace(0,1,90);
y0=x;y1=x.^2;y2=x.^3;y3=x.^(1/2);y4=x.^(1/3);
Lecture 7 Materials Selection figure;plot([x,x,x,x,x],[y0,y1,y2,y3,y4]);
© Eric Johlin 2021-22 figure;plot(log([x,x,x,x,x]),log([y0,y1,y2,y3,y4]));
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Young’s Modulus - Density

minimum weight, deflection-limited, design

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Levels of complexity to charts

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Bubble Charts – Multiple Properties

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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 Granta example (Level 1) 20

69 materials

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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 Granta example (Level 2) 21

100 materials

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 Granta example (Level 3) 22

4026 materials

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Explore a few property relationships

common in materials selection

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Strength - Density
minimum weight, yield-limited design

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Strength – Modulus
springs, energy storage systems, pivots, knife-edges, and hinges

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Fracture Toughness - Modulus

design against fracture, energy to create new surface

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Fracture Toughness - Strength

damage-tolerant design; yield before fracture

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Loss Coefficient – Young’s Modulus

Loss is related to stiffness; bond motion and polymer chain motion allow energy release and low stiffness

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Thermal Conductivity – Electrical Resistivity

bismuth telluride

Thermoelectrics

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Thermal Conductivity – Thermal Diffusivity

Difference between good insulator on steady state and vs thermal shock (transient)

𝜆
𝑎=
Lecture 7 Materials Selection 𝜌 𝐶!
© Eric Johlin 2021-22
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Thermal Expansion – Thermal Conductivity

design against thermal distortion; for thermal actuators

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Thermal Expansion – Young’s Modulus

limit thermal stresses

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Young’s Modulus – Cost Per Unit Volume

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Strength – Cost Per Unit Volume

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Materials Development

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Summary (Material Property Charts)

q A classification system for materials allows data for them to

be organized, relationships to be visualized

q Visual presentation of data as bar-charts and property

(bubble) charts reveals relationships and allows comparisons

q It is important to have a feel for the range of values that are

possible (e.g., density, modulus, etc.; see Section 4.3 of text)
and why

q New materials that fill empty parts in a chart may offer novel
or improved design potential

q Charts will form the basis for a materials selection procedure

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

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Next time:

Materials Selection
using Charts

Lecture 7 Materials Selection

© Eric Johlin 2021-22