TLP Library
Teaching and learning packages (TLPs) are self-contained, interactive resources, each focusing on one area of Materials Science.
- Search for a TLP Hide description Show description
-
- + Filter by tag
-
- alloys (9)
- atomic-scale structure (18)
- ceramics (3)
- chemistry (5)
- composites (3)
- corrosion (2)
- crystallinity (5)
- crystallography (7)
- diffusion (6)
- electronic properties (8)
- energy (3)
- experiment (10)
- functional materials (8)
- fundamentals (5)
- kinetics (5)
- magnetism (2)
- manufacturing (4)
- mechanical properties (17)
- metals (15)
- microscopy (8)
- microstructure (6)
- natural materials (5)
- optical properties (5)
- phase transformations (7)
- polymers (8)
- Raman spectroscopy (1)
- steel (3)
- tensors (3)
- thermal properties (3)
- thermodynamics (7)
- thin films (2)
- Currently showing
- 21 TLPs having the following tags:
This TLP builds upon the introduction to yield criteria covered in the Stress analysis and Mohr's circle TLP and introduces a range of methods commonly used to study metal forming processes.
This teaching and learning package provides an introduction to the mechanics of beam bending and torsion, looking particularly at the bending of cantilever and free-standing beams and the torsion of cylindrical bars.
What determines when a material will break, and whether failure will be catastrophic or more gradual. Cracking is controlled by the energy changes that occur - it is not the stress at the crack tip that is important..
An understanding of polymer crystallinity is important because the mechanical properties of crystalline polymers are different from those of amorphous polymers. Polymer crystals are much stiffer and stronger than amorphous regions of polymer.
This teaching and learning package (TLP) introduces the concept of texture in crystalline materials such as common metals and metallic alloys.
Highly porous materials, such as honeycombs, foams and fibrous structures, are an important class of material in both synthetic and biological systems. They are used in many different ways, but their mechanical behaviour is often of great importance as they are pressed, bent, sat on or chewed. An important class of these materials can be considered as made up of cells, so-called cellular structures. Here we describe how these materials deform, elastically and irreversibly.
Tags:
elastic deformation
This teaching and learning package covers the fundamentals of metal forming processes.
Dislocations are crucially important in determining the mechanical behaviour of materials. This teaching and learning package provides an introduction to dislocations and their motion through a crystal. A 'bubble raft' model is used to demonstrate some of the features of dislocations and other lattice defects. Some methods for observing real dislocations in materials are examined.
This teaching and learning package (TLP) discusses the elasticity of biological materials. Whilst some show Hookean elasticity, the vast majority do not. Non-linear elasticity is considered, in particular J-shaped and S-shaped curves. Viscoelasticity is also discussed, using hair and spiders' silk as examples.
An introduction to the indexing of diffraction patterns.
Tags:
diffraction
microscopy
This teaching and learning package is based on laboratory experiments used in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge. The package looks at how the microstructure of a material can affect its properties. It is split into two experiments: the first part introduces tensile testing and stress-strain curves, while the second part uses three-point bending, as introduced in the Beam Stiffness TLP.
This teaching and learning package (TLP) gives an introduction to the nature of fibre-reinforced composite materials and their basic mechanical characteristics.
This tutorial is based on lab work within the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge. The tutorial provides an introduction to the topic of photoelasticity and preparation for lab work. Photographs illustrate many features of birefringence in polymers under polarised light.
This TLP shows the construction of reciprocal lattices from real ones, use of the Ewald sphere for diffraction experiments and some other applications of reciprocal space.
This teaching and learning package explains how plastic deformation of materials occurs through the mechanism of slip. Slip involves dislocation glide on particular slip planes. The geometry of slip is explained, and electron microscopy techniques are used to show slip occurring in single crystals of cadmium.
This TLP covers the use of the Stereographic projection and Wulff nets.
This teaching and learning package provides an introduction to the theory of metal forming. It discusses how stress and strain can be presented as tensors, and ways of identifying the principal stresses. Suitable yield criteria to treat metals and non-metals are also presented.
This teaching and learning package (TLP) introduces the phenomena of superelasticity and the shape memory effect.
This teaching and learning package (TLP) is based on lab work in the Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy at the University of Cambridge. The TLP provides an introduction to the topic of thermal expansion, and its application, together with the different stiffness of materials, in the bi-material strip. The TLP leads you through experiments to measure Young's Modulus from the deflection of a cantilever beam, and to estimate the boiling temperature of nitrogen and the expansivity of a polycarbonate material from the curvature of a bi-material strip immersed in liquid nitrogen.
This teaching & learning package provides an introduction to X-ray diffraction. It describes the main crystallographic information that can be obtained and experimental methods most commonly used.

© 2004-2013 University of Cambridge.