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Questions tagged [material-science]

The study of how the properties of matter arise from its structure at all scales and of how processing can be used to modify those properties (often in pursuit of a specific application).

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Force problem related to adhesive and bonding

I have two PCBs (printed circuit board), and they are glued by adhesives, as show in the pictures. And the location of the adhesives are indicated on the picture (please notice that NO adhesive is ...
Delay No More's user avatar
9 votes
0 answers
522 views

Why does the overhand knot jam but the figure-8 knot doesn't?

After tensioning a rope with an overhand knot in it, it is often very hard if not impossible to untie it; a figure-8 knot, on the other hand, still releases easily. Why is that so? Most "knot and ...
ctgPi's user avatar
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9 votes
1 answer
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Why don t tiny cracks heal in metal via cold welding?

Or in other words: how do cracks inside metal survive given the phenomenon of cold welding? If metal is overstretched, one or more fine cracks result along imperfections in the metal lattice. Why don'...
xeeka's user avatar
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5 votes
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Reference guide for standard descriptions of materials

Is there any reference that has a coherent list of materials and what type of approximate Hamiltonian to best describe them with (where it is known). Particularily I am looking for the following bits ...
5 votes
0 answers
163 views

Can a bulk crystal have a spontaneous quadrupole moment?

Crystals of polar space groups e.g. ferroelectrics can have a spontaneous electric dipole moment. Is it possible for a crystal to have a spontaneous electric quadrupole moment (and higher order terms ...
Tess's user avatar
  • 103
5 votes
1 answer
120 views

Is there a material with non-monotone density dependence on pressure?

Is there a material with such non-linear effects (including chemical reactions, phase transitions etc ...) so that there would be range where pressure increase would yield density decrease? What ...
user1558113's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
123 views

How small can velcro be?

Note: "fiber" refers to individual hooks and/or loops. Imagine two flawless graphene sheets, one with atomic diameter hydrocarbon loops attached to one face, one with atomic diameter ...
R. Burton's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
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Sound conduction in a stethoscope

i am trying to build a stethoscope and since i have no idea about physics and acoustics i wanted to ask some questions, hoping Somebody can help me. I mainly have some questions regarding the tubing ...
Jamie Franklyn's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
319 views

Is there a material that allows light to pass perpendicular to the surface, but reflects at an angle?

This is inspired by Michael Steven's new video about optics. He shows off Selenite, which has the property that light entering on one side travels perpendicularly down the crystal until it exits the ...
Daffy's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
617 views

Why aren't all insulators transparent, since they have a large band gap?

According to Floris' answer in this link, diamonds are transparent as they have large band gaps while graphite is black as it is a conductor. As electrical insulators generally have a large band gap, ...
Kawin M's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
176 views

What is the physical reason behind the negative differential resistance (NDR)?

As you know, there is an effect called negative differential resistance in some electric devices and materials, but I could not find any article or book or any other reference to talk about the ...
P.A.M's user avatar
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4 votes
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How to know chern number of Massive Dirac Hamiltonian

I need your help. I consider this Hamiltonian $H=v(\xi k_y \sigma_x+k_x\sigma_y)+m\sigma_z $ $\xi$ is valley index. It is +1 (at K' valley) or -1 (at K valley ). I want to know Chern number of ...
NooooooooMath's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
2k views

What does a sheet of graphene look like?

What does a sheet of graphene look like? At one atom thick, is it visible to the naked eye? Can it be handled (by hand) with being torn? Can it be felt at all? [Assuming a large enough sheet ...
user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
893 views

What makes Obsidian edges sharper than other glass?

Obsidian is a volcanic glass with a reputation for being extremely sharp. Some surgeons use obsidian scalpels rather than high-quality steel surgical scalpels. At the same time, glass blades are used ...
Sophit's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
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A physicists perspective on a material science/engineering problem

I am looking into some research that involves engineering and material science. As a physicists I wondered what other physicists would think of this problem and how they would approach it. Much of the ...
Plinyyy's user avatar
  • 41
4 votes
1 answer
112 views

How can one reasonably theoretically model polycrystalline materials?

Many techniques are taught in advanced solid state courses but they are almost all derived for perfectly crystalline materials. For example, band structure really only appears theoretically when you ...
YungHummmma's user avatar
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4 votes
1 answer
292 views

Non-glassy amorphous solids

According to Wikipedia: A glass is any "solid that possesses a non-crystalline (that is, amorphous) structure at the atomic scale and that exhibits a glass transition when heated towards the liquid ...
augurar's user avatar
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3 votes
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What causes these 2nd order knot shapes and why?

I twisted a (broken) rubber band around multiple revolutions. Initially it created what I call first order twists, where the "wave-length" of the twist got shorter and shorter across the ...
Brendan's user avatar
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3 votes
1 answer
118 views

Are solid materials ergodic systems?

It is stated that a system is considered ergodic if it can access all available states with the same energy in the phase space over long periods of time and that time average and ensemble average of ...
Aneli's user avatar
  • 31
3 votes
0 answers
42 views

How can you separate the band structure of two materials in a heterostructure?

I have a heterostructure with two layers A and B. I have calculated the wave-function, and properties (bands and dos) of the AB heterostructure as well as the A and B materials separately by removing ...
Bill's user avatar
  • 31
3 votes
0 answers
398 views

Magnetic susceptibility

Currently I'm doing the simulation of Ising Model with Monte Carlo method. I got a curve which the magnetic susceptibility diverge (precisely due to finite size effect, it is not diverge but show the ...
JensenPang's user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
118 views

Effects of annealing on defects in solid

What is the effect of annealing on the defects present in the sample? Does it remove defects in the sample? Is there any chance that due to annealing the point defects present in the sample combine to ...
Prab's user avatar
  • 59
3 votes
0 answers
172 views

What is a ferroelectric metal?

I was reading online about ferroelectricity, and came upon the topic of ferroelectricity in metals. The main cited paper is the one below by Anderson and Blount in the 1960's Symmetry Considerations ...
KF Gauss's user avatar
  • 7,991
3 votes
0 answers
107 views

Stress-Strain behavior of ceramics at high temperatures

Can someone explain to me why do we observe the peak in the stress strain behavior at 1400 C and then a sudden decline followed by gradual increase? What does it signify? Does it have anything to do ...
Diabolik's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
1k views

Physics simulator to test the properties of metal alloys

In my free time I enjoy designing and invent random devices that do a variety of things and as part of this I design the materials that would be used to make the object, taking into account the needs ...
HyperdriveMacGee's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
67 views

Material that changes solubility when electric potential is applied

I am looking for a material witch is easy to deposit in thin films and which changes its solubility if a electric potential is applied. Do you know of any such materials ? EDIT: This is for what I ...
james's user avatar
  • 829
3 votes
1 answer
1k views

What's the difference between critical load and yield stress?

So far, I have learned of three quantities that are related to the failure of a beam (axial and longitudinal loads). The first illustrates the stress under which balsa wood will undergo plastic ...
Rithwik Sudharsan's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
115 views

Why do elastic bands stretch?

From what I know already rubber bands are made up of long straight molecules (alkanes I assume?) and when unstretched these are a mess of coiled and cross linked. And by stretching them you untangle ...
Jake's user avatar
  • 533
3 votes
0 answers
2k views

What is so special about octahedral stresses?

Octahedral stresses are described here. Octahedral shear stress failure criterion is also called as distortion energy failure criterion. Moreover, famous von Mises yield criterion is related with ...
rt341d's user avatar
  • 41
3 votes
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623 views

can freezing water burst a short pipe if the pipe is open at both ends?

My question: If a thin-walled copper or brass pipe is open on both ends (let's dimension it at 60 cm long by 8mm inner diameter, as an example) and is filled with slightly salty water (estuarine ...
TFRedfield's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
42 views

How do spongy substances crack or tear?

I read that there is a length (the Griffith critical crack length) beyond which cracks start to become self-propagating. If a crack in a sponge very quickly reaches a hole and stops propagating how do ...
Ms. Molly Stewart-Gallus's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
102 views

nano materials and material science

As a part of my major project I have taken plates of Al6061 samples and butt welded them with friction stir welding machine. During welding I have incorporated metal oxide Nano particles into weld ...
Lavakumar 's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
47 views

How does flow rate affect plume dynamics and film properties in PLD?

So I use a home-built Pulsed Laser Deposition(PLD) system to deposit metal oxide thin films. I use a $ 248\ \mathrm{nm KrF}$ laser. I recently deposited two films under slightly different conditions. ...
Pramod Ravindra's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
72 views

How "steady" are screw threads?

I have a setup whereby two stainless steel end caps screw into a similar tube about 100mm in length and 25mm internal diameter. Thread is fairly standard, and is finger tight. The question is: ...
user avatar
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

If we put diamagnetic material under strong electromagnet, would the opposing magnetic fields be strong enough to attract ferromagnetic materials?

Suppose we put a diamagnetic material (such as Bismuth or Pyrolytic Carbon) under a strong magnet (see image below). It would create opposing magnetic fields. Would the opposing magnetic field be ...
Artur's user avatar
  • 69
3 votes
0 answers
53 views

What material could be used to study magnetic phase transitions in a college laboratory exercise?

I am working to develop a simple laboratory exercise in solid state physics to be conducted by fourth year students of physics. The idea of the exercise is for the student to get some experience in ...
Marculius's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
118 views

Why can thermal shocks damage/break materials?

When an object is heated a lot and then brutally cooled down or vice-versa, it can crack or even break spectacularly. What happens inside that makes it do that? Is it only because the hot core swells ...
Mister Mystère's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
115 views

Where does one find pair-correlation functions for various materials?

What is the canonical source for finding pair-correlation functions for atoms in various materials? I am interested in both numeric computations and experimental measurements (like might be obtained ...
3 votes
0 answers
129 views

Does graphene actually remain strong for macroworld engineering?

I heard that people envision strong structural materials made out of graphene, but I heard it may weaken when being stack in layers. Is graphene viable for macroworld structural engineering or is it ...
j riv's user avatar
  • 409
3 votes
1 answer
340 views

Why is BaTiO3 piezoelectric, but CaTiO3 not?

When BaTiO3 is cooled below the Curie point (120°C), the cubic structure changes slightly, so that $Ti^{4+}$ shifts by 0.006nm away from its position at the center of the cube. I don't know why this ...
Samuel's user avatar
  • 120
3 votes
1 answer
144 views

What ring weave disposition should be the most resistant against stabbing and/or how to determine it

In a website that I am studying so I can build a Chain Mail, I have found a page featuring a lot of different Ring Weaves to build them. I want to determine which one is the best to provide ...
Marius's user avatar
  • 31
3 votes
2 answers
19k views

What would be the best material to reflect radio waves?

From what I could gather after a quick search on the internet, it would seem that any material can reflect or absorb RF waves but thickness matters. It's obvious that most parabolic dishes are made ...
hololeap's user avatar
  • 131
2 votes
0 answers
70 views

How does one use empirical pseudopotentials to model disordered random alloys?

How does one use empirical pseudopotentials to model disordered random alloys? I am working on modeling random alloys and came across the following paper: https://link.aps.org/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevB.85....
AbelT's user avatar
  • 145
2 votes
0 answers
38 views

How can we calculate entropy produced by plastic deformation in this example?

Suppose we have a massless spring of spring constant $k$ attached to a mass $m$ at equilibrium position $x_{0}$ at temperature $T$. The mass may oscillate in one dimension only for simplicity. We ...
Maximal Ideal's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
599 views

Why do some metal oxides behave as n-type or p-type extrinsic semiconductors without adding a dopant?

There are some metal oxides that are said to be extrinsic n-type and p-type semiconductors without having been doped. For example, $\mathrm{In_2O_3}$, $\mathrm{SnO_2}$ and $\mathrm{ZnO}$ are said to ...
user21390097's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
44 views

Are YBCO or BSCCO rods able to superconduct at full $J_{c}$?

My understanding of the state of the art for superconducting cables is that ceramic powder is manufactured, then it's packed very tightly into a silver tube. I'm not sure how this is supposed to solve ...
tourist's user avatar
  • 66
2 votes
0 answers
41 views

How can I remove a layer of Silica from a rough IN718 surface?

Our rocketry group is designing a biliquid ethaLox Inconel 718 additively manufactured chamber. We are looking into using Tetraethyl orthosilicate as a fuel additive to reduce the heat flux in our ...
Dumb's user avatar
  • 21
2 votes
0 answers
32 views

Phase transition detected using Raman spectra is not visible with XRD analysis

I am currently trying to analyse a paper in which perovskite material is pressurized and they observe the variation in structural properties using Synchrotron XRD and Raman Spectroscopy. Now the ...
Chan's user avatar
  • 173
2 votes
0 answers
91 views

Why does a spring work the way it does?

I am wondering if anyone can explain what exactly makes the shape of a spring so good at creating something so elastic and good at converting between kinetic and potential energy. The metal itself isn'...
Maximal Ideal's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
36 views

How porous can a ferromagnet before turning paramagnetic?

As there is an inherent size limit to magnetic domains, as the porosity of a ferromagnetic material increase, there will be a point in which a static magnetic field will not be possible. There are a ...
Evamentality's user avatar

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