MEPX
Chapter 9 of 10All chapters
  1. 1Describing a material
  2. 2Structure decides behaviour
  3. 3Metals
  4. 4Ceramics and polymers
  5. 5Composites
  6. 6How materials fail
  7. 7Processing changes properties
  8. 8Choosing a material
  9. 9Modern materials
  10. 10Materials and sustainability

Chapter 9 of 10

Modern materials

What has changed recently.

New families

Carbon nanotubes and graphene have extraordinary measured properties at small scale. Shape memory alloys return to a remembered form when heated. Metamaterials get behaviour from structure rather than substance.

  • Laboratory properties rarely survive scale-up unchanged.
  • 3D printing allows shapes that no casting or machining could produce.

Batteries and semiconductors

Much of the last fifty years of technology is materials progress: silicon purity, lithium chemistries and display materials, rather than new principles.