Materials are used in every field of engineering. Raw materials must be obtained, separated from source ores and processed to give useful materials. Alloys must be melted, solidified and formed into appropriate microstructures to give the desired properties. Minute additions of other elements, and modification of processing parameters lead to an enormous variation in material performance. Intermetallics have been plagued by difficult fabrication problems requiring control of stoichiometry, environment and thermo-mechanical treatments.
Materials processing is complex and provides many challenges for researchers and industry to solve.
Materials are truly engineered today. If a specific property is desired, a class of material is chosen, the composition may be modified, and processing is tailored to produce the desired properties. Much of this tailoring occurs at the atomic and microscopic scale. Some of the steps in materials processing are listed below. In materials engineering undergraduate studies a student learns the fundamentals of materials processing, structure and properties.