Introduction to Materials and Metallurgical Engineering Discipline

Have you ever wondered about the range of materials that are employed in applications as diverse as aerospace, motor vehicles, foodstuffs and pharmaceuticals packaging, bridges, biomedical/orthopaedic implants, and computer and electronics hardware? Have you also thought about what causes the failure of an aeroplane engine, leakage in storage tanks and oil pipelines, explosions in boilers, and structural failure of buildings? What about the materials with which drill bits are made so that they can be used to tear through rocks underground in oil drilling? These questions, problems, and their answers or solutions fall within the field of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering (MME) or Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) – following modem trends in terminology.

Materials are essential to the construction of any engineering structure from the smallest integrated circuit to the largest bridge. In almost every technology, the performance, reliability, or cost is determined by the materials used. As a result, the drive to develop new materials and processes (or to improve existing ones) makes Materials and Metallurgical Engineering one of the most important and dynamic engineering disciplines. The field is concerned with the design, manufacture, and use of all classes of materials (including metals, ceramics, semiconductors, polymers, nanomaterials, and biomaterials and with energy, environmental, health, economic, and manufacturing issues relating to materials. The very nature of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering means that it cuts across other disciplines.

The dominant theme of Materials and Metallurgical Engineering is the relationships among the structure/composition, processing properties, and performance of materials are crucial to their function in engineering systems. All engineering products utilize materials. The steel of automobiles, building structures, the materials for aircraft and ocean-going vessels, the concrete of highways, and the less apparent but equally important materials of electronic circuits, the carbide bits on oil well drills, etc., are all engineering materials. Each of these products requires materials with specific characteristics such that the material can be processed into the final products satisfactorily and economically and the products will behave appropriately in service. Materials and their properties are important design considerations in many engineering projects. In many cases, the success of major new technology hinges critically upon new and unforeseen demands on materials performances.

Metallurgical Engineering is the study of the production, properties, and uses of metals and alloys. It had been traditionally offered by many universities worldwide because of the extensive use of metals, for instance, iron and steel, aluminum, copper, titanium, magnesium,beryllium amongst others, and their alloys in engineering products. Within the decade preceding 1970, concurrent with the nucleation and growth of new disciplines, came the establishment of the Materials Engineering course. It is closely allied to Metallurgical Engineering but broadens the scope of engineering materials beyond that of metals and their alloys. Materials Engineering is therefore interested in the properties of a wider range of materials including electronic materials, ceramics, glass, polymers, and many other natural and man-made materials. The Materials or Metallurgical Engineer must therefore know how to manufacture and specify the materials for suspension bridges, TV sets, computers, oil refineries, rocket motors, nuclear reactors, supersonic transport vehicles, ocean-going vessels, electricity generating stations, automobiles, telecommunication equipment etc. Students are therefore inadequately exposed to the physics and chemistry of materials: with emphasis on the structure-property relations, the changes in structure, and the concomitant property changes realizable through thermal and mechanical treatments. The programme furthermore aims at interlacing the above knowledge with adequate engineering and technology content.