November 2006

Materials Education News

Deutsch: Diese Ausgabe von “Granta Materials Education News” beinhaltet einige Punkte, die sich auf die Lehre in deutschsprachigen Raum beziehen.

English: This issue includes some items of particular relevance to German-speaking users. We provide the original German text for these items.

In this issue:

  1. Give us your views and win materials prizes!
  2. Short course dates for 2007 - join us in Orlando or Cambridge
  3. Design Award result
  4. A new materials textbook from Mike Ashby
  5. New German-language textbook - Neues Lehrbuch in deutscher Sprache
  6. Eco-design software and conference
  7. Head of department web event
  8. Free web seminars
  9. CES EduPack user reports - CES EduPack Erfahrungsberichte auf Deutsch

top
1. Give us your views and win materials prizes!

Help us to design better teaching resources by giving us your views. If you're a CES EduPack customer, tell us how we can improve our product and service. If you're not yet a customer, tell us about your needs!

Fill out our survey and we will send you a copy of our materials-property-based card game Material Intelligence, The Game. The playing cards represent 36 materials, from ABS to Tungsten Alloys. Players compete by pitting their materials’ attributes against their opponents’. Inspire colleagues, friends and family, ages 8 to 108, with the joys of materials and their properties!

We'll also enter you in a prize draw, with ten winners receiving a free copy of Mike Ashby's new book, Materials — Engineering, Science, Processing, and Design (more information below).

Fill in the questionnaire on Granta's website

  Granta's materials property card game

top
2. Short course dates for 2007 - join us in Orlando or Cambridge

Granta offers one-day training events aimed at teaching staff in universities and colleges and led by Professor Mike Ashby of Cambridge University. The first dates for 2007 are now confirmed.

Date Location Details
February 25 Orlando, FL, USA Within the continuing education program at the TMS Annual Meeting (TMS meeting registration not required)
April 16 Cambridge, UK At the University of Cambridge Engineering Department

The courses present recent advances in materials and process selection, with specific emphasis on their use in education. You will discover a wide range of solutions for class teaching, student projects, and research. The course will use the latest version of the revolutionary CES EduPack software and its accompanying teaching resources, mixing lectures with interactive hands-on time with the software.

More details and registration


top
3. Ashby Design Award result

The winner of the annual Ashby Design Award has been announced. This year’s materials selection problem was the most challenging to date. Contestants were asked to take the role of a consultant choosing a material with very low thermal conductivity, but able to withstand 15,000 psi of pressure. The application, which was in a medical device, involved hot liquid flowing through a tube. A key objective was to minimize heat loss.

The challenge stimulated an excellent response: 30 submissions from a number of countries. The Award this year goes, by a narrow margin, to Eduardo Avancini Alves of the Federal Univerisity of Rio Grande do Sol, Brazil, for his innovative exploration of tubular structures in nature as a source of inspiration, and for his competent analysis of the problem and his use of CES software to devise a steel-mesh reinforced polyurethane composite tube that meets the design requirements.

Congratulations to Eduardo and to Professor Wilson Kindlein Jr. who guided the project.

More information on the Design Award


top
4. A new materials textbook from Mike Ashby

Materials: Engineering, Science, Processing and Design delivers a proven, systematic approach to understanding and selecting materials and processes. Taking a design-led approach, Ashby, Shercliff and Cebon draw on their extensive experience of teaching materials to undergraduates. Matched to a wide variety of courses, this is the first textbook dedicated to undergraduate engineering students taking materials courses.

The book is complemented by the CES EduPack software. Combined, the book and software are a uniquely powerful materials teaching and learning resource. The book will be priced at £29.99 / €43.95 / $74.95 and publish in February 2007.

Visit www.textbooks.elsevier.com/ashby for more information.


top

5. Neues Lehrbuch in deutscher Sprache / New German-language textbook

Deutsch:

Ein weiteres neues Buch über Werkstoffauswahl, dieses Mal auf Deutsch, ist ‘Methodik der Werkstoffauswahl - der systematische Weg zum richtigen Material’ von Prof. Dr.-Ing Martin Reuter der FH Hannover. Der Autor beschreibt diesen Vorgang detailliert und bezieht dabei technische, wirtschaftliche, technologische und auch nicht sachbezogene Aspekte mit ein. Das Finden des geeigneten Werkstoffs wird durch Checklisten, Werkstoffschaubilder, Designparameter und Informationsbeschaffung im Internet unterstützt. Das Buch wird vom Fachbuchverlag Leipzig im Carl Hanser Verlag herausgegeben und ist ab Dezember verfügbar.

Falls Sie ein neu erschienenes Buch oder neue Lehrmittel kennen, die für die weltweite Leserschaft unseres Newsletters interessant sein würden, freuen wir uns, wenn Sie uns Bescheid sagen würden. Wir könnten diese Information  dann über unseren Newsletter verbreiten, so dass auch  andere Lehrende der Werkstoff- und Verfahrenwissenschaft davon profitieren können.

English:

Another new book covering materials selection, this time in German, is Methodik der Werkstoffauswahl - der systematische Weg zum richtigen Material (Material Selection Methodologies - the systematic path to the right material) by Martin Reuter of the Fachhochschule Hannover. The author describes in detail the process of targeted material selection, exploring the relevant technical, economic, and non-technical aspects. The selection of an optimal material is supported through check lists, material property charts, design parameters, and web resources. The book is published by Fachbuchverlag Leipzig im Carl Hanser Verlag and will be available in December.

If you know of a new book or teaching resource that would be useful to the global community that reads Granta Materials Education News, why not contact us? We could publicise it via this newsletter and help other materials and process educators.


top

6. Eco-design software and conference

Eco-design is an increasingly important application area for teaching and for the use of CES EduPack. Eco-materials, materials with reduced environmental impact, are critically important to sustainable development. Granta is supporting the 8th International Conference on Eco-Materials (ICEM8) at Brunel University, UK, July 9-11, 2007. This event will enable the worldwide academic and industrial community to learn about cutting-edge developments, address new challenges, share solutions, and discuss future research directions.

ICEM8 conference website

Granta software allows researchers, teachers, and students to explore environmentally-relevant properties, such as the energy embedded in producing a material, and to apply this information in design projects.

More on CES EduPack editions — including the Eco Edition for teaching of eco-selection

More on Granta's EcoSelector software for research & development


top

7. Head of department web events

Professor Mike Ashby hosted two web events for program directors, heads of department, and academic deans in university engineering faculties. The CES EduPack is being adopted as a strategic teaching tool by a growing number of universities to support teaching from first year through to post-graduate studies across a broad range of courses. These seminars provided an overview of the CES EduPack as a resource for your whole faculty. They were designed for program directors, heads of department, or deans.

Contact usto receive a copy of Professor Ashby's slides.


top

8. Web seminars

Sign up for these upcoming web seminars to find out more about materials and process education software and its use in practical teaching.

Title Date Time Content
EduPack as a Faculty Resource Dec 14 11am (New York)
4 pm (London)
5pm (Paris, Berlin)
Universities are getting more from their investment in EduPack by deploying it to support multiple courses and teachers. Find out how this could work for you.
An introduction to CES EduPack Jan 11 11am (New York)
4 pm (London)
5pm (Paris, Berlin)
An introduction to the EduPack databases and selection tools and how EduPack can be used in various courses from senior design to introduction to materials.

Details and registration


top

9. CES EduPack Erfahrungsberichte / CES EduPack user reports

Deutsch:

Wenn sie mehr darüber erfahren möchten, von wem und auf welche Weise das CES EduPack genutzt wird, besuchen Sie unsere Homepage. Den Bereich 'Erfahrungsberichte' werden wir weiterhin regelmäßig aktualisieren. Die letzten Beiträge wurden von Dr.-Ing. Michael Schmidt-Kretschmer von der Technischen Universität Berlin, Prof. Dr. Bernd Oertel von der FH Schmalkalden und Prof. Dr. Ralph Spolenak von der ETH Zürich verfasst.

Dr. Schmidt-Kretschmer sagt: "Das Fachgebiet Konstruktionstechnik und Entwicklungsmethodik hat den Material Selector von Mike Ashby mit sehr positiver Resonanz von Seiten der Studierenden in der Lehrveranstaltung Reverse Engineering im Sommer Semester 2006 eingesetzt. In diesem Kurs wurden verschiedene Produkte hinsichtlich grundlegenden Verbesserungspotentials analysiert. Dabei spielte die Materialauswahl eine entscheidende Rolle. Ohne lange Einarbeitung konnte das Programm direkt genutzt werden. Die Anschaulichkeit der Darstellungen steigerte aber auch das grundsätzliche Verständnis für die Materialauswahl. Aus meiner persönlichen Sicht ist das Programm daher zu empfehlen, und wir werden es auch in Zukunft in unsere Lehrveranstaltungen integrieren."

Prof. Spolenak kommentiert: "Im Sommersemester 2006 wurde das CES Edupack erstmalig an der ETH Zürich an Studierende der Materialwissenschaft verteilt. Der Erfolg war beachtlich. Es war erstaunlich, dass die Studierenden nicht nur unaufgefordert begannen Materialauswahlübungsaufgaben mit dem CES Edupack zu lösen, sondern auch, unabhängig von den Aufgaben, neue Materialien zu erforschen. Dabei war es besonders hilfreich, dass es die Hilfefunktion des CES Edupack erlaubt, sich direkt im Programm die theoretischen Grundlagen einer Eigenschaft anzusehen. Dies alles trägt äusserst positiv zum Lernprozess bei. Die technischen und alltäglichen Werkstoffanwendungen werden in den Fallbeispielen exemplarisch erläutert und dargestellt. Dies zeigt den Studenten eindrücklich die gesamte Bandbreite der Werkstoffe. Zusammenfassend kann ich den Einsatz dieser Software im Studium der Materialwissenschaft oder im Maschinenbau nur wärmstens empfehlen."

Prof. Oertel’s Kommentar: "Traditionell wird die Auswahl nur auf Teilgruppen von Werkstoffen begrenzt. Die Auswahl ist sehr subjektiv geprägt und beruht nahezu ausschließlich auf Erfahrungen. Deshalb war ich auf der Suche nach einer objektiveren, wissenschaftlich gestützten Auswahlmethode. Ich habe diese in dieser Software in Verbindung mit der Literatur zur Ashby-Methode gefunden. Eine vergleichbare Software ist mir nicht bekannt. Ich finde sowohl das Programm als auch die Ashby-Methode großartig, weil damit ein Vergleich in nahezu allen Eigenschaften der Werkstoffe aus allen Werkstoffgruppen möglich ist." Klicken Sie hier um den ganzen Bericht zu lesen.

Weitere CES EduPack Erfahrungsberichte

Kontaktieren Sie uns doch und teilen uns mit, wie Sie das CES EduPack verwenden

English:

To see who is using CES EduPack, and how, visit the Granta website. We continue to update the user reports section, with the latest contributions coming from Dr.-Ing. Michael Schmidt-Kretschmer at the Technische Universität Berlin, Professor Dr. Ralph Spolenak at ETH Zurich, and Professor Dr. Bernd Oertel from FH Schmalkalden.

Dr. Schmidt-Kretschmer says "The Engineering Design and Methodology Division has incorporated CES EduPack into its Reverse Engineering course, receiving a very positive response from the students. In this course a range of different products are analyzed and the potential for improving their design is studied. Materials selection plays a critical role in this process. The CES EduPack was applied directly by students, without any prior knowledge of the program. Their understanding of materials property charts was enhanced, as was basic comprehension of materials selection."

Professor Spolenak comments "Not only did the students begin to solve material selection examples unprompted, they also, independent of these excercises, researched new materials. The in-depth background science in the CES EduPack was particularly useful, as it enabled students to refer to the theoretical foundations of a property directly within the program." 

Prof. Oertel comments: "Our mechanical engineering students learn how to use the CES EduPack software in a materials selection course. Our Industrial Engineering students use the EcoSelector version in a recycling course. The software is introduced in lectures and covered in more depth in classes using simple examples such as light-weight construction and load cases. Material selection is one of the most challenging topics covered. Traditionally selection is limited to specific groups of materials only and can very subjective, depending heavily on experience. I looked for a more objective, scientific approach, which I found in the software and supporting Ashby literature and theory."

"I am not aware of any comparable software programs. I find both the software program and Ashby methods excellent, as I'm able to compare virtually all materials properties from every material group. This can in many cases lead to innovation through the optimal application of a material. Through the endless combinations of properties offered by Ashby's performance indices the software is almost unlimited in its ability to discover new selection approaches."

More reports and reviews from CES EduPack users.

Why not tell us how you are using CES EduPack? Contact us.


top
You have been sent this newsletter because you have previously expressed interest in our products. If you would like to unsubscribe (see below) we will remove you from our e-mail list.

To comment, send us input, amend your e-mail contact address or unsubscribe please respond to: news@grantadesign.com.