What is the difference between engineering and true stress-strain curves? When deforming a sample, engineering stress simplifies by neglecting cross-sectional change. True stress correctly accounts...
Posts by Brandon Ohl
Stress is the force per cross-sectional area that a material withstands. Strain is the percent change in the length of the material. The stress-strain curve is the simplest way to describe the...
What is Atomic Packing Factor (and How to Calculate it for SC, BCC, FCC, and HCP)?
Atomic Packing Factor (APF) tells you what percent of an object is made of atoms vs empty space. You can think of this as a volume density, or as an indication of how tightly-packed the atoms...
Alloys are metals made of more than one element. That’s it. As long as the final product behaves like a metal, but it’s not elementally pure, it’s an alloy. There are no special rules about...
The Difference Between Alloys and Composites (and Compounds)
Alloys and composites are separate concepts. One is not a subset of the other. An alloy is a combination of elements (at least 1 metal) in solid-solution with overall metallic...
What is the Difference between “Materials Science” and “Materials Engineering?”
The short answer: “materials science” and “materials engineering” are exactly the same thing. Perhaps it’s more accurate to say that the “science” in materials science relies upon...