What is Materials Engineering?

Look around! The clothes that we wear, the cars that we drive, the airplanes in which we fly, the cell phones and computers that we use, the CD & DVD players we cannot live without, the dishes that we eat from are all made of different types of materials. Significant contributions by materials scientists and engineers have made all these available to us. Materials Science & Engineering is a systematic study of all such types of materials. Actually, it is a lot more than that it is a study of how materials can be changed and made better to do more amazing things, enabling the creation of completely new kinds of materials! Most materials fit into general categories such as metals, ceramics & polymers:

• Metals are very strong, ductile and are excellent conductors of heat and electricity. Metals are generally heavy, but some metals like aluminum are light, while still being strong making its use widespread such as in soda cans, kitchen utensils, aluminum foil, and major parts of aircrafts.
• Ceramics are made by combining metals with non-metals, and are strong, brittle, and generally poor conductors of heat and electricity. But materials scientists have figured out how to make them good conductors of electricity too.
• Polymers include plastics, rubber, etc., and can be very elastic.

Other types of materials that do not fit in the above classifications also exist:

• Electronic materials, such as semiconductors, superconductors and magnetic materials.
• Biomaterials that can aid in the creation of artificial body parts.
• Composite materials, made from a combination of more than one type of material.