Materials and Design

ARCH-2510

This course establishes an understanding of the most common materials, their properties and resulting uses, and the implications of their uses in the larger context of material life cycles. The structural makeup of metals, ceramics, polymers, and composite materials is discovered and their resulting properties, costs, and life cycle consequences are clarified. An understanding of basic mechanical properties is established hands on by conducting tension, compression, and 3-point bending tests (mse-lab). Physical performance of material constructs as synergy between form and material properties is further illustrated. Experiments are conducted that introduce such major concepts as structural loading, properties of sections, and resulting system performance. Sustainability: The concept of life cycles is introduced; material and energy flows are tracked throughout the entire material life cycle. This will be accomplished alongside introducing major material groupings (metals, polymers, ceramics, and composites). Students come to realize that environmental concerns are directly related to structural composition and material availability. Consequences of resource extraction, distribution, manipulation, use, and disposal, reuse or recycle are addressed at both local and global scales. Selected field trips to materials extraction, processing, manufacturing, disposal, and recycling facilities are aimed to give physical meaning to the concept of life cycle.

Past Term Data