About this course: Have you ever wondered why ceramics are hard and brittle while metals tend to be ductile? Why some materials conduct heat or electricity while others are insulators? Why adding just a small amount of carbon to iron results in an alloy that is so much stronger than the base metal? In this course, you will learn how a material’s properties are determined by the microstructure of the material, which is in turn determined by composition and the processing that the material has undergone. This is the first of three Coursera courses that mirror the Introduction to Materials Science class that is taken by most engineering undergrads at Georgia Tech. The aim of the course is to help students better understand the engineering materials that are used in the world around them. This first section covers the fundamentals of materials science including atomic structure and bonding, crystal structure, atomic and microscopic defects, and noncrystalline materials such as glasses, rubbers, and polymers.
Created by: Georgia Institute of Technology
Taught by: Thomas H. Sanders, Jr., Regents' Professor
School of Materials Science and Engineering
| Language | English |
| How To Pass | Pass all graded assignments to complete the course. |
| User Ratings |
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Introduction [Difficulty: Easy || Student Effort: 1hr 30mins]
This module will introduce the core principles of materials science. Topics that will be covered include the different general material types (metal, ceramic, polymer, etc.) and the properties associated with each type, some methods that are used to experimen...
14 videos, 5 readings
Graded: Quiz 1.1 (Lectures 1.1 - 1.5)
Graded: Quiz 1.2 (Lectures 1.6 - 1.10)
WEEK 2
Atomic Structure and Bonding [Difficulty: Easy || Student Effort: 2hrs]
In this module, we will discuss the structure of the atom, how atoms interact with each other, and how those interactions affect material properties. We will explore how the types of atoms present in a material determine what kind of bonding occurs, what diff...
18 videos, 3 readings
Graded: Quiz 2.1 (Lectures 2.1 - 2.5)
Graded: Quiz 2.2 (Lectures 2.6 - 2.9)
Graded: Quiz 2.3 (Lectures 2.10 - 2.11)
Graded: Quiz 2.4 (All Module 2 Lectures)
WEEK 3
Crystalline Structure [Level of Difficulty: Medium || Student Effort: 2hrs 30mins]
This module covers how atoms are arranged in crystalline materials. Many of the materials that we deal with on a daily basis are crystalline, meaning that they are made up of a regularly repeating array of atoms. The "building block" of a crystal, which is c...
21 videos, 2 readings
Graded: Quiz 3.1 (Lectures 3.1 - 3.6)
Graded: Quiz 3.2 (Lectures 3.7 - 3.12)
Graded: Quiz 3.3 (Lectures 3.13 - 3.16)
Graded: Quiz 3.4 (Lectures 3.17 - 3.20)
WEEK 4
Point Defects and Diffusion [Level of Difficulty: Medium || Student Effort: 2hrs 30mins]
In the previous module, we learned how the lattice structure of a crystalline material in part determines the properties of that material. In this module, we will begin to learn how defects - deviations from the expected microstructure - also have a large eff...
19 videos, 2 readings
Graded: Quiz 4.1 (Lectures 4.1 - 4.6)
Graded: Quiz 4.2 (Lectures 4.7 - 4.12)
Graded: Quiz 4.3 (All Module 4 Lectures)
WEEK 5
Linear, Planar, and Volumetric Defects [Level of Difficulty: Medium || Student Effort: 2hrs 40mins]
This module covers two- and three-dimensional defects such as dislocations, grain boundaries, and precipitates. The discussion extends to explain how deformation of a material is accommodated at the microscopic level. We will finish by addressing how the pre...
23 videos, 2 readings
Graded: Quiz 5.1 (Lectures 5.1 - 5.8)
Graded: Quiz 5.2 (Lectures 5.9 -5.15)
Graded: Quiz 5.3 (Lectures 5.16 - 5.19)
Graded: Quiz 5.4 (Lectures 5.20 - 5.22)
WEEK 6
Noncrystalline and Semicrystalline Materials [Level of Difficulty: Medium || Student Effort: 2hrs 30mins]
In this module, we discuss materials that are not fully crystalline, such as polymers, rubbers, and glasses. You will learn how the absence of crystallinity affects the behavior of these materials and what factors affect their formation and properties. Lesso...
24 videos, 3 readings, 3 practice quizzes
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Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology is one of the nation's top research universities, distinguished by its commitment to improving the human condition through advanced science and technology.
Georgia Tech's campus occupies 400 acres in the heart of the city of Atlanta, where more than 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students receive a focused, technologically based education.
Ratings and Reviews
Very good!
I think this course is very good
Very useful primer of a course. It refreshes a lot of the fundamental concepts in the Materials Science. Would highly recommend it to anyone.
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