Aerospace Materials MSc

​The aim of this module is to enable you to analyse the structure and properties of materials, to relate fabrication processes with structure and properties, assess how this determines materials properties, and apply this knowledge to materials in applications.

• Introduction to materials: Atomic structure, crystal structure, imperfections, diffusion, mechanical properties, dislocations and strengthening mechanisms, phase diagrams, phase transformations, solidification, corrosion.
• Basic and alloy steels, tensile behaviour of metals, work and precipitation hardening, recovery and recrystallisation.
• Structural steels - C-Mn ferrite-pearlite structural steels, specifications and influence of composition, heat treatment and microstructure on mechanical properties. Fracture, weldability and the influence of welding on mechanical properties.
• Corrosion Resistant Materials - Stainless steels - austenitic, ferritic, martensitic and duplex stainless steels- compositions, microstructures, properties.
• Welding and joining processes, weld metal, heat affected zones and weld cracking.
• Non-metallic Materials - Polymers and composites manufacturing issues, physical properties and mechanical behaviour. Structure and properties and applications of ceramics.
• Principles underlying electrical and magnetic properties of materials.

 On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. 1. Analyse material structures on a micro and macro scale, and correlate micro structure to mechanical performance.
2. 2. Relate the chemical composition, microstructure and processing route for steels and non-ferrous alloys with the resulting mechanical properties.
3. 3. Compare and contrast fracture, corrosion and welding behaviour for a variety of alloys.
4. 4. Describe and evaluate a range of manufacturing processes for composites and ceramics and explain important properties of these classes of material with respect to typical applications.
5. 5. Relate magnetic and electrical behaviour of materials to specific materials.

To evaluate sustainable aerospace issues and materials challenges in processing and performance requirements relevant to aerospace and space applications.

• - Sustainable and critical aerospace materials and life cycle of materials.
• - Future Airpower systems (gas turbine, electric, hydrogen) and sustainable aviation issues.
• - Review requirements for airframe, aero engine and space applications.
• - Innovative thinking for sustainable aviation. Space environment and materials.
• - Structural metals e.g. aluminium, magnesium, titanium alloys.
• - Ceramic and ceramic matrix composites and gas turbine materials.
• - Structures containing both carbon fibre reinforced composite and metal (hybrids) and composite performance.
• - Operative environment and corrosion issues.
• - Phases of a product life cycle.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. 1. Explain requirements from classes of aerospace materials for airframe, aero engine and space materials discussing suitability in the context of specific applications.
2. 2. Select the most appropriate material for parts of a range of aerospace and space craft components considering the likely requirements and issues of sustainability.
3. 3. Describe methods of processing aerospace materials particularly joining issues and propose suitable routes for selected applications.
4. 4. Appraise manufacturer’s requirements in the context of product life cycle, maintenance and health monitoring.

To provide an understanding of why materials and structures fail and how failure conditions can be predicted in metallic and non-metallic components and structures.

• Definition of failure, complexities in defining failures at different levels and scenarios.

• Overview of failure in mechanical and electrical components, systems and assets.

• Failure of materials and structures including Atomic insight of damage in materials, stress concentration, critical energy release rate, Griffiths approach, stress intensity and fracture toughness standards and tutorials.

• Fatigue in structures and machine components, Paris Law, Crack propagation and useful life estimation.

• Asset Failures, system and sub-system interdependencies, fault and usage management systems, Economic vs. Severity matrix for decision making.

• Failure analysis techniques and Tutorials : FMEA, FMECA, FTA, RCFA.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. Appraise engineered asset failures and its complexities in defining at different levels and scenarios.

2. Explain the principles of Linear Elastic Fracture Mechanics (LEFM) in structures and demonstrate their application to cracks in brittle, ductile and fibre composites through calculation of static failure conditions.

3. Apply fracture mechanics to failure of cracked structures under cyclic loads and evaluate and predict service lives of structures.

4. Assess system and sub-system interdependencies to decide asset failure.

5. Evaluate asset failures by using failure analysis techniques.

To provide you with the knowledge and skills required to enable you to carry out the selection of appropriate materials for a wide range of engineering and other applications in a sustainable way.

• - Principles of materials selection: Materials selection procedures. Check lists. Elementary stressing calculations. Choice of fabrication techniques. Case studies. Data sources. Material selection group exercise. Material selection individual exercise.
• - Specific polymers and composites: The structure, properties, processing characteristics and applications for the commercially important polymers. General classes of polymers: commodity, engineering and speciality thermoplastics, thermosetting resins, rubbers. Variation in behaviour within families of polymers: crystallinity, rubber toughened grades; reinforced and filled polymers.
• - Specific metals, alloys: The metallurgy, properties, applications and potentialities of metals and alloys in a wide variety of engineering environments. Specific metals and alloys both for general use and for more demanding applications. Titanium, nickel and magnesium based alloys, intermetallics, steels. The design of alloys, current developments in the field of light alloys, steels, high temperature materials. Development of current aerospace aluminium alloys: precipitation hardening, effect of precipitates on mechanical properties, designation of aluminium alloys, alloys based on Al-Cu, alloys based on Al-Zn.
• - Introduction to engineering ceramics: introduction to particulate engineering, thermodynamic and kinetic requirements for powder processing, Interparticle forces.
• - Ceramic forming techniques, Sintering and densification, processing related properties of ceramics: structural and functional.
• - Eco-audit, critical and sustainable materials .

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. 1. Recognise and examine a wide range of materials and their properties to undertake materials selection effectively, using appropriate reference sources (books, data sheets, computer databases).
2. 2. Evaluate materials with respect to material properties, manufacturing processes and sustainability issues for a given design specification or application.
3. 3. Use and appraise a systematic approach to the selection of material(s) to meet the requirements of a component design brief.
4. 4. Prepare and present effective oral or written presentations to justify materials selection. .

To provide specialist training in functional materials and devices for applications in aerospace and space. The module will explore the way that functional and nano materials can be used and structured for sustainable energy, decarbonisation and aerospace.

Functional materials for energy

• Production, storage and use of hydrogen as an energy carrier.
• Electrochemical energy storage, alternative energy storage.
• Graphene.

Materials and devices for aerospace sustainability

• Radiation detectors in space.
• Battery & supercapacitor technologies.
• Photo, thermo, electrochromic devices.
• PV & solar cells.
• Sensors and micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS).

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. 1. Describe the operation of a range of components and devices derived from functional materials.
2. 2. Select and develop a functional material solution for different environmental situations and for decarbonisation.
3. 3. Design or critique devices with a functional material application in the context of aerospace, decarbonisation or similar.

​To provide a detailed awareness of current and emerging manufacturing technology for high performance composite components and structures and an understanding of materials selection and the design process for effective parts manufacturing.

• Background to thermosetting and thermoplastic polymer matrix composites.
• Practical demonstrations – lab work.
• Overview of established manufacturing processes, developing processes, automation and machining.
• Introduction to emerging process developments; automation, textile preforming, through thickness reinforcement.
• Design for manufacture, assembly techniques and manufacturing cost.
• Case studies from aerospace, automotive, motorsport, marine and energy sectors.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. 1. Compare manufacturing processes employed for thermosetting resin composites and thermoplastic resin composites.
2. 2. Propose appropriate manufacturing techniques for a given composite structure/ application and identify current areas of technology development for composites processing.
3. 3. Differentiate between handling and use of prepregs and a range of fibre forms and resins for manufacture of high performance composite structures.
4. 4. Apply the design process for high performance composite structures and appraise the influence on design to the manufacturing process.
5. 5. Evaluate performance-cost balance implications of materials and process choice.

To introduce the concepts of surface engineering and how surface engineering and coating design may be used to optimise a component’s performance .using a systems design approach.

• Philosophy of surface engineering, general applications and requirements.
• Basic principles of electrochemistry and aqueous corrosion processes.
• Friction and Wear: Abrasive, erosive and sliding wear. The interaction between wear and corrosion.
• Analytical Techniques: X-ray diffraction, TEM, SEM and EDX, WDX analysis, surface analysis by AES, XPS and SIMS.
• Surface engineering as part of a manufacturing process.
• Integrating coating systems into the design process.
• Coating manufacturing processes.
• Electro deposition, flame spraying, plasma spray, sol-gel.
• Physical vapour deposition, chemical vapour deposition, ion beam.
• Coating systems for corrosion and wear protection.
• Coating systems for gas turbines.
• New coating concepts including multi-layer structures, functionally gradient materials, intermetallic barrier coatings and thermal barrier coatings.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. 1. Demonstrate a practical understanding of surface engineering as part of the design of manufacturing process.
2. 2. Critically appraise new coating concepts. Describe and select appropriate coating manufacturing processes, giving examples of their applications.
3. 3. Select and recommend techniques to characterise surfaces and describe analytical principles.
4. 4. Describe oxidation and corrosion processes, including the factors that control the rates of corrosion. Critically discuss types of corrosion damage, the conditions under which they occur and methods of corrosion control.
5. 5. Predict the behaviour of friction and wear, including abrasive, erosive and sliding wear. Design for wear resistance, including the selection of suitable coating systems.

Provide you with both an introduction to the theory underpinning finite element analysis (FEA) and hands on experience using the well-established FEA package.

• Overview of element discretisation, FEA method, pre-processing, solution and post-processing, basic terminology, range of applications.
• Introduction to concepts of constitutive equations for linear elasticity.
• Introduction to concepts of nodal displacement, element shape functions for 1D and 2D linear-elastic structures.
• Introduction of FEA matrices, equations and critical steps to an FEA solution.
• Presentation of commercial FEA software packages.
• Presentation of FEA for mechanical analysis using various element types: bars, beams, 2D, 3D, shell elements.
• Presentation of FEA for heat transfer analysis, equivalence with other field problems, convergence issue, boundary conditions, model creation and solution.
• Presentation of CAD model, meshing, symmetry, model development, implementation of force boundary conditions, solution, and post processor analysis.
• Advanced FEA analysis: geometric non-linearity, material non-linearity, contact problems, dynamic problems, and explicit solution.
• Applications of FEA to enhanced mechanical designs: Optimisation.
• Case studies on metallic and composite structures.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. 1. Recognise finite element analysis (FEA) methodology and uses by comparing principles, assumptions and case studies to state-of-the-art.
2. 2. Recognise and examine the limitations associated with the use of FEA in actual applications.
3. 3. Demonstrate an approach for solving a range of actual problems.
4. 4. Evaluate considerations for applying FEA to component modelling.
5. 5. Critically assess the results obtained from FEA by comparing FEA solutions from fundamental matrix operations, constitutive equations and a commercial software.

​​​To introduce the basic principles and fundamentals techniques of computational materials with special focus on structure, properties, and processes relationships​.

• Multiscale modelling though mechanistic and data-driven approaches.
• Modelling Engineering Materials Design vs Materials Selection.
• ​Atomic Scale Methods: Density Functional Theory, Molecular Dynamics.
• ​Mesoscopic Methods: Phase-field, Cellular automata, Monte Carlo approaches.
• ​Machine learning approaches applied to materials science.
• ​Uncertainty quantification, verification, and validation through modelling and experiment integration.

On successful completion of this module you should be able to:

1. 1. Recognise systematically the concepts and principles underpinning modelling engineering materials and their applications to engineering problems.
2. 2. Distinguish modelling engineering solutions related to materials structure, properties, and processes relationships.
3. 3. Assess appropriate materials modelling techniques to address engineering challenges.
4. 4. Formulate opportunities to implement integrated computational materials engineering (ICME) approaches to address engineering problems.
5. 5. Apply the principles and application of uncertainty quantification by implementing verification and validation approaches.