A.1.1 Students Work Guide
(Referring to the book: “Smart Materials and Technologies”).


Every team is searching for information that is somehow linked to the other teams’ topics.

Adam and Robert will analyze the organization systems of several material classification approaches in Architecture, Engineering, Material Science, Design fields (Interior design, Landscape design, Fashion-Textile). You will try to uncover the point of view of these approaches: more descriptive, more on a particular application, or on the understanding of the basic internal structure of materials, etc.
You should differentiate between traditional and alternative classification systems.

Rob and Drake will be involved with internal general structure of materials, and particularly with the arrangement of atoms and molecules held together with different types of chemical bonding forces.
They will work with solid materials and they will concentrate in their intrinsic properties and composition (crystalline solids, polycrystalline solids, amorphous solids). The structure of material influences the final characteristics and properties of the material, at the micro and macro levels. They will analyze the arrangements of the structures components and their orders.

Jonathan and McKee will work on the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties.
Intrinsic: is determinate by the molecular structure (= chemical composition) of the material (here you will overlap with Rob and Drake). You could try to define the strength and the hardness of a material related to forces, and also to the substance’s melting and boiling points. Strength is an intrinsic property. Mechanical properties are intrinsic (elastic, toughness) as well as physical properties (conductivity, heat, density) and chemical properties (reactivity, valence, solubility).
Extrinsic properties are defined by the macrostructure of the material, not just by the composition alone (optical properties, many acoustical properties). Most materials undergo property changes with an input of energy. After a definition of intrinsic and extrinsic properties, you should concentrate on the 5 categories of material properties: mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical, optical. They indicate the energy stimuli that every material must respond to. For ex.: Mechanical properties determine how a material will behave when subjected to a load (weight, force, impact, torsion). The behavior that results from these loads includes strain, deformation, or fracture. Mechanical properties: they depend on what (factors)? Those factors are influenced by what (material type and composition)? Now, for each of the 5 properties you should give us material examples. Metals have thermal properties (thermal conductivity). If you talk about wood, you should associate a category of properties to it, etc...

Amador, Brian, and Gary will define the characteristics of traditional materials and high performance materials according to their behavior. They have a fixed response to external stimuli. What does it mean? What happen to their properties under normal conditions?
Following the proposed classification, you must search for primary and derivate materials. You will find, besides more traditional polymers (plastics, rubber, etc.), materials like temperature-responsive polymers and shape memory polymers that are classified as smart materials. Important is the understanding of properties, behaviors and responses to stimuli. SM sense and react to stimuli and environmental conditions. Most everyday materials have physical properties, which cannot be significantly altered.

Angela, Paloma, and Jonathan will try to define Nanomaterials and Nanotechnology (technologies associated with materials and processes at the nanometer scale, 10-9m). The combination of smart material and nanotechnology provides many advantages, realizes novel designs that could not be achieved in traditional engineering and offers greater opportunities as well as challenges. The field of Smart Materials and Nanotechnology is very diverse with application ranging from bioengineering to photonics. Nanotechnology is rapidly developed and it permits control of matter at the level of atoms and molecules which would form the building blocks of smart materials. Smart materials are thus evolving from traditional fiber reinforced composite through functionally graded materials to the current nanotechnologically grown materials. These materials will thus have the capability of closely mimicking (biomimetics) nature enabling structures to act like human skin, or a leaf's chlorophyll. The development of true smart materials at the atomic scale is still some way off, although the enabling technologies are under development (from ‘smart-nano.org’).
Nanotechnology will be able to program material properties and to build materials from scratch. It would be interesting to explore speculative potential applications.

Due Sept. 14, 2009