'Dah Keje Pun Kena Study' 101 - Materials

Haha, now I know what're you thinking...well, actually I don't. Okay here's the thing, I'm supposed to have this assessment thingy next week. In today's fast paced environment, even your competencies and capabilities have to be accelerated in order to survive the working world (which is sad, but true, and I hate it turned out this way). Anyway, the company I'm working for is having this initiative called ACD - Accelerated Capability Development for this. For the young engineers, that means one thing: start cranking up your brain...again. And so, just to help myself studying and to share some info with all of you. Let's talk about what to study. Lesson 1: Materials (warning: things might get technical, hoho..)

Basically, there are 3 factors affecting materials selection in engineering: temperature, pressure and service (basically the medium the equipment will be subjected to; whether it is toxic, corrosive, operated at marine environment and stuff). So at low temperatures, the usage of carbon steel is already sufficient in fabrication. But when the temparature starts to increase, then the usage of low alloy carbon steel or even stainless steel seemed to be a better fit. Even when the operating temperature is well below 0 (zero) degress Celcius (like in air separation units to produce liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen) , usage of material such as nickel and aluminium is more appropriate. (due to it's better properties against heat, better strength, etc.)

Mechanical engineers usually refer to some codes and standards as a guide in the day-to-day work. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) has a solid, comprehensive guidelines on materials. ASME II classifies material mainly into two: metallic and non-metallic. Under metallic, we have ferrous unalloyed (strictly iron compound), ferrous alloyed (iron with some alloy compound) and non-ferrous (metals other than iron).

For non-metallic, we have tonnes of names to throw at (I do not remember all the names!), categorized into a few groups. We have thermoplastics (soften at increased temperature, hardens at reduced temperature like PVC), thermosets (fibreglass), elastometrics (rubber-like properties), fibre reinforced (contain fibres such as carbon, aramid and glass), and insulation (rockwool, calcium silicate, refractory bricks which are meant for thermal insulation). These non-metallic materials are also group into its resistance to chemical attacks, whereby the most non-resistant ones will subject to cracking, swelling, brittlement and decomposition.

Told you that it's gonna get technical, right? Well, I'm just sharing what I know (and what I have studied so far). I hope I have shared the correct knowledge; if not I apologize. Logging off now...