Higher Institute of Petroleum-Ubari Title course: Properties of material

Lecture: four Department of General

Physical properties
The ways in which any material interacts and responds to various forms of energy are of
prime interest to scientists and, in the context of engineering, provide the essential base
for design and innovation. The energy acting on a material may derive from force fields
(gravitational, electric, magnetic), electromagnetic radiation (heat, light, X-rays), etc.
The responses of a material, generally referred to as its physical properties, are
governed by the structural arrangement of atoms/ions/molecules in the material.
Physical properties of materials
1- Density
This property, defined as the mass per unit volume of a material, increases regularly
with increasing atomic numbers in each subgroup.

Density = ρ = mass/volume

On alloying, the density of a metal changes. This is because the mass of the solute atom
differs from that of the solvent, and also because the lattice parameter usually changes
on alloying.

The density clearly depends on the mass of the atoms, their size and the way they are
packed. Metals are dense because they have heavy atoms and close packing; ceramics
have lower densities than metals because they contain light atoms, either C, N or O;
polymers have low densities because they consist of light atoms in chains.
2- Melting point
This is the temperature at which the material changes phase from solid to liquid.
Applications
- Hot forging requires heating the metal to just below its melting point before beating it
into the required.

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- In injection molding, plastic is melted and injected into the mould cavity. How much
higher than the melting point should it be melted?
- Components made of steel can be joined by a process called brazing, which uses a
copper alloy to weld the components together. This operation will not damage the steel
parts since the copper alloy melts at much lower temperature than steel.
3- Specific heat
The specific heat is another thermal property important in the processing operations of
casting or heat treatment, since it determines the amount of heat required in the process.
It is defined as the amount of heat energy that will raise the temperature of a unit mass
of the material by 1°C.
Thus, the specific heat (denoted by Cp, when dealing with the specific heat at constant
pressure) controls the increase in temperature, dT, produced by the addition of a given
quantity of heat, dQ, to one gram of matter, so that dQ=CpdT.
Notes: The specific heat of a metal is due almost entirely to the vibration motion of the
ions. However, a small part of the specific heat is due to the motion of the free
electrons, which becomes important at high temperatures, especially in transition metals
with electrons in incomplete shells.
Application:
In machining and forming processes, a lot of heat is generated due to deformation and
friction between the tool and workpiece. If the specific heat of the work piece is low,
then its temperature will rise very rapidly, resulting in poor surface finish. So extra or
more efficient coolants may be required. Likewise, if the specific heat of the tool
material is low, the tool will heat up rapidly, leading to lower tool life .
4- Electrical conductivity
One of the most important electronic properties of metals (κ), and the reciprocal of the
conductivity (known as the resistivity, ρ) is defined by the relation R=ρl/A, where R is
the resistance of the specimen, l is the length and A is the cross-
sectional area.
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Since conductivity arises from the motion of conduction electrons
through the lattice, resistance must be caused by the scattering of
electron waves by any kind of irregularity in the lattice arrangement.
Irregularities can arise from any one of several sources, such as
temperature, alloying, deformation.
Most metals are good conductors, while many plastics, ceramics, rubbers etc. are very
poor conductors.
Applications:
Some processes, such as Electro Chemical Machining, Electro-plating etc require that
the workpiece is an electrical conductor. They cannot be used on non-conductors.
5- Thermal conductivity
The thermal conductivity of a material is the quantity of heat that passes in unit time
through unit area of a plate, (e.g. one degree temperature difference across a thickness
of one unit).
Thermal conductivity = Heat flow rate / (Area × Temperature gradient)
Applications:
Titanium is used in many designs where light, hard and strong metal components are
required, e.g. in aircraft components. However, it is not easy to machine (e.g. using
milling machines) in part due to its poor thermal conductivity – the high temperature
gradients causes very high temperature near the point of cutting, which rapidly heats the
tool cutting edge and destroys the tool.
6- Thermal expansion
The change in dimensions with temperature is usually expressed in terms of the linear
coefficient of expansion α. Or The linear coefficient of thermal expansion is defined as
the proportional change in a material’s length when its temperature changes by 1°C:
the linear coefficient of expansion α, given by α=(1/l)(dl/dT), where l is the original
length of the specimen and T is the absolute temperature.

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Phase changes in the solid state are usually studied The change in volume with
temperature is important in many metallurgical operations such as casting, welding and
heat treatment. Of particular importance is the volume change associated with the
melting or, alternatively, the freezing phenomenon, since this is responsible for many of
the defects, both of a macroscopic and microscopic size, which exist in crystals.
Applications:
In machine tools where different components are made of different components, the
assembly become too loose and vibrate, when the temperature changes. Their design
must account and compensate for the different rates of thermal expansion for the
materials.

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