DESIGING HYBRID MATERIALS

DESIGN AND SELECTION OF MATERIALS
Design is one of those words that mean all things to all people, every manufactured thing, design is the process of translating a new idea or a market need into the detailed information from which a product can be manufactured. Each of its stages requires decisions about the materials of which the product is to be made and the process for making it.

Material selection is a step in the process of designing any physical object. In the context of product design, the main goal of material selection is to minimize cost while meeting product performance goals. Systematic selection of the best material for a given application begins with properties and costs of candidate materials. For example, a thermal blanket must have poor thermal conductivity in order to minimize heat transfer for a given temperature difference.

Systematic selection for applications requiring multiple criteria is more complex. For example, a rod which should be stiff and light requires a material with high Young s modulus and low density. If the rod will be pulled in tension, the specific modulus, or modulus divided by density E / ?, will determine the best material. But because a plate s bending stiffness scales as its thickness cubed, the best material for a stiff and light plate is determined by the cube root of stiffness divided density .
There are two important principles that should apply to materials selection in engineering manufacture:


(1) Materials selection should be an integral part of the design process;
(2) Materials selection should be numerate.