MTS7001 - Microstructure in Materials

Lecturer: Dr Amit Kumar

Course Content

- Basics of crystallography
- Thermodynamics, energy curves and building phase diagrams
- Interpretation of phase diagrams to allow microstructure prediction
- Nucleation and kinetics: predicting scales of microstructures; the existence and importance of metastable states
- Steel as an example: iron-carbon phase diagram; metastable phases in steel
- Microstructures in ceramics and polymers
- Influence of microstructures on mechanical properties
- Microstructures in metal-insulator phase transitions (percolative problems)

MTS7002 - Mechanical Properties of Materials

Lecturer: Dr Krishna Manda

Course Content

- Basics of stress and strain (introduction to tensors for describing mechanical properties)
- Basic mechanisms and signatures of elastic and plastic deformation (under tensile and compressive loading); includes crystallographic slip systems and detailed treatments of dislocations
- Structural failure of materials under loads (brittle vs ductile failure mechanisms; fatigue)
- Hardness and toughness (definitions, physical origins, testing methodologies)
- Tribology and surface wear
- Bending, impact testing and materials behaviour under extreme loading conditions.

MTS7003 - Polymers and Composites

Lecturer: Prof Biqiong Chen

Course Content

1.0 Polymer Chemistry & Mechanical Properties
-   Molecular definitions, chemical reactions etc.
- Physical properties (crystallisation, melting, morphology, glass transition, rheology, mechanical properties)
- Electrical characteristics & applications (i.e. Bi, Tri-copolymers for semiconductors)
-   Environmental characteristics (thermal, electrical, porosity etc)
2.0 Polymer Production & Processing
-   Polymerisation and production (nano-fibres, nano-particles etc)
- Introduction/overview of forming technology (thermoforming, extrusion, moulding etc)
- Process / Property interaction (sensitivity of material characteristics to processing parameters)
3.0 Polymeric Fibre-Reinforced Composites
- Introduction to fibre reinforcements (glass, carbon, natural etc)
- Composite micromechanics (mechanical, thermal, electrical characteristics - sensitivity to fibre type, fibre volume fraction etc)
4.0 Composite Processing & Manufacture
- Introduction/overview of FRP manufacturing technology (RTI, RTM, filament winding, out-of-autoclave etc)
- Process / Property interaction (sensitivity of composite characteristics to processing parameters)
- Fibre-Matrix interfaces - Physics of adhesion and bonding (wetting, chemical bonding, mechanical interlocking etc)
- Surface modifications - tailoring fibre-matrix or polymer adhesion through surface oxidisation, plasma treatment etc)
5.0 Advanced Polymer & Composite Materials
- Multi-functional polymers (material physics/chemistry, benefits, applications)
- Nano-composites (material physics/chemistry, benefits, applications)
- Demonstration of advanced research from SAME and SCCE

MTS7021 - Functional Properties of Materials

Lecturer: Dr Fumin Huang

Course Content

 

Electronic structure (2 days) - Schrödinger equation: from atoms to solids; electronic bands and band gaps; classification of materials into insulators, semiconductors and metals; review of modern electronic structure methods; prediction of materials functional properties from electronic band structures: optical, dielectric, magnetic and transport.

Optical Properties of Materials (1 day) – Transmission of light: Refractive index, dispersion and group index, birefringence, absorption and scattering.  Light at boundaries: Fresnel laws of reflection and transmission, Brewster’s angle, total internal reflection, evanescent fields.  Waveguides: optical fibre communication.  Interference: Bragg reflectors, dielectric mirrors, photonic crystals.

Magnetic Materials (1 day) – basics of magnetism and link to angular momentum; properties of disordered (diamagnetic, paramagnetic) and ordered magnetic materials (ferromagnets and antiferromagnets); Domains and hysteresis (including anisotropy); soft and hard magnetics and magnetoresistance.

Dielectrics (1/2 day) – electrical polarisation; concepts of polarizability and local electric field (Mossotti); Mossotti catastrophe and ferroelectricity.

Transport Phenomena (1 Day) – Mass transfer: differential equations to describe transport under field / concentration gradients (e.g. Fick’s Law and modifications); time-dependent solutions to diffusion equations under different boundary conditions (error function solutions and approximations). Heat transfer: general differential equations for heat conduction and radiation; Fourier Law and its consequences.

MTS7022 - Materials Selection and Characterisation

Lecturer: Dr Efrosyni Themistou

Course Content

 

Materials Selection (MAE):
Material selection - use of Cambridge Materials Selector (Ashby diagrams) - MAE

Materials characterisation (CCE, M&P):
Introduction to macroscopic and microscopic observation
Spectroscopy (CCE) - infrared radiation (IR) spectroscopy, ultraviolet/visible (UV-Vis) spectroscopy, fluorescence spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-Ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), energy dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy, wavelength dispersive X-Ray spectroscopy, mass spectroscopy (MS) 
Chromatography (CCE) - column chromatography (CC), size exclusion chromatography (SEC), gel permeation chromatography (GPC), high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), ion exchange chromatography (IEC), gel electrophoresis chromatography (GEC), gas chromatography (GC), thin layer chromatography (TLC)
Diffraction (CCE) - X-Ray diffractometry (XRD), neutron diffraction, electron diffraction
Scattering (CCE) - Dynamic light scattering (DLS), static light scattering (SLS), small angle neutron and X-ray scattering (SANS and SAXS)
Microscopy and surface analysis (M&P) - Optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy, scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM), scanning probe microscopy (SPM), atomic force microscopy (AFM)
Thermal analysis (CCE?)  - thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC)
Porosity and chemical composition analysis  - Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), gas absorption, combustion analysis

 

MTS7023 - Project Management and Data Handling

Lecturer: Dr Salissou Moutari

Course Content

Part 1: Theory and Computational Tools for Project Management
Introduction - planning, analysis and control
Network Representations - activities on arcs and nodes representations
Critical Path Analysis
Variability in activity durations (PERT: program evaluation and review technique)
Time-cost trade-off using linear programming
Gantt charts and equivalents
Resource usage

Part 2: Data Handling and Mining, Understanding Statistics
Key stages in statistical investigation
Preliminary data analysis - data structure and pre-processing; descriptive statistics
Sample diagnosis - tests for independence; tests for normality; data transformation
Significance tests and hypothesis testing
Introduction to data mining
Dimensionality reduction
Cluster analysis
Classification

MTS7024 - Manufacturing and Processing of Materials

Lecturer: Dr Damian Quinn

Course Content

 

Heat Treatment and Thermo-Mechanical Processing of Materials (including surface heat treatments and surface property modifications)
Materials Casting: conventional and novel casting methodologies - their advantages and disadvantages
Welding and joining materials
Materials manufacturing by plastic deformation: forging, rolling etc.
Additive manufacturing
3D Printing

 

MTS7030 - Research Project

Module Coordinator:  Dr Miryam Arredondo-Arechavala

Course Content

Students will undertake research projects for around 3 months over the summer period. A range of projects will be offered by staff across the Schools involved in the delivery of the MSc. Students who are employed by materials-related industries may choose to perform their project within their company environment, provided the nature of the project is deemed suitable by the QUB academic team. Students will be assigned a project by balancing their interests with project topic availability.

The project will involve:
(i) sourcing and reading relevant literature
(ii) experimentation or computational simulation
(iii) aggregation and analysis of data (from experiments or computational output)
(iv) formal reporting through project meetings and through assessed "chalk and talk" presentations
(v) preparation and submission of a formal dissertation

MTS7070 - Materials-Related Professional Internship

Course Content

 

The professional internship normally lasts for a period of 6 to 11 months, during which time the student is a full employee and subject to all the requirements of the employer. Students must complete a minimum 6-month placement to satisfy University requirements.