Advanced materials processing and manufacturing

This unit covers advanced processing and manufacturing technologies of metals, ceramics, polymers and composites. The first part of this unit introduces the processing of cast and wrought metals, including casting, thermomechanical processing, welding and additive manufacturing of metallic materials. It also includes processing-microstructure-property relationships in the products produced by each of these processing technologies. The second part of the unit introduces ceramic processing technologies including green body shaping, solid-state sintering, liquid phase sintering and hot-pressing. It also examines additive manufacturing, sol-gel processing and thin-film growth for ceramic materials and the processing-microstructure property relationships for each of the technologies included. The third part deals with the processing and properties of polymers and shows how these aspects determine their use in particular applications. The rheology of polymers is discussed and the factors controlling viscosity are described and related to polymer processing. Designing with polymers for specific properties, processes and applications is included. For composites, the types of matrices and fibres/fillers are described as well as composite fabrication and the effect of reinforcement on properties.