What are the different research areas in the Department of Materials Engineering and what are the challenges for new students?

The Department of Materials Science and Engineering encompasses research areas such as metals, polymers, ceramics, and more, and highlights the importance of materials science and why incoming students have difficulty explaining the major to the general public. It also addresses the need to develop materials for a sustainable future and the wide range of applications of materials science.

 

The name of the major, Materials Science and Engineering, is unfamiliar to most people. “What is your department?” and “What are these tempura made of?” are the most common questions that freshmen who have entered the Department of Materials Engineering hear on New Year’s Day. The name of the Department of Materials Engineering is quite unfamiliar. Of course, food is a material, but it’s hard for a freshman to know what it is, and it’s far from the actual field of materials engineering.
Originally, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering was created as a combination of several majors, including inorganic engineering, metallurgy, and polymer engineering. This may explain why it is sometimes called a ‘department’ of materials engineering and sometimes called a ‘school’ of materials engineering. The department can be divided into three main areas: metals, polymers, and ceramics. Metals, as the name suggests, is the study of metals such as steel, polymers is the study of polymer synthesis processes and methods, and ceramics is the study of ionic bonds.
Although these three fields seem different, they all have in common that they study materials that exist in their natural state and find ways to improve their performance. In other words, materials science is not different from other engineering disciplines in that it involves improving what already exists and applying it to something new. For example, in metals, researchers study new alloying ratios to make steel more durable, or develop materials that don’t deform in high-temperature environments. In the field of polymers, researchers work to increase the strength of plastics, develop environmentally friendly biodegradable polymers, and more. In the field of ceramics, researchers develop ceramic materials that can withstand high temperatures and are used in the aerospace industry.
However, the difference between materials engineering and other engineering disciplines is that materials are the basis for many of the inventions of modern civilization, so it is often said that materials engineering is a discipline that can be applied to almost any field. As such, materials engineering is an interdisciplinary field. You need to know exactly how a particular field of engineering is organized, what its problems are, and what it needs in order to develop the right materials for it. For this reason, materials engineering students need a broad spectrum of knowledge, from basic to applied, and are the bridge between them.
In order to maximize the desired properties of a material, both macroscopic and microscopic understanding is required. While the evaluation of a material’s properties must be done at a macroscopic level, these properties are also determined by the microstructure and processes of the material. Therefore, the Department of Materials Engineering offers a wide range of courses, from those that deal with the microscopic view of materials to those that evaluate the properties of materials from a macroscopic perspective. Through these courses, materials engineering students develop practical problem-solving skills through various research and experiments.
The broad scope of the department is both an advantage and a disadvantage for materials engineering students. On the one hand, it is vague and unclear, and on the other hand, it allows students to be flexible in responding to emerging fields. As a result, materials engineering does not have a distinctive undergraduate program. In shipbuilding and marine engineering, the goal is an ideal ship, and in mechanical engineering, the goal is an efficient mechanical structure, but in materials engineering, the goal is so broad that the undergraduate program focuses on learning the necessary basic disciplines before deciding on a specific goal. Then, in graduate school, students set specific goals and apply the fundamental disciplines to develop the targeted material properties in earnest.
Another important role of the Department of Materials Science and Engineering is to develop materials for a sustainable future. As environmental concerns and resource depletion intensify, materials engineering students are focused on developing recyclable materials, energy-efficient materials, and materials that minimize environmental impact. This shows that materials engineering is not just about meeting industrial needs, but also about social responsibility.
As mentioned above, the name of the major may be unfamiliar to many, but materials engineering has been around since the beginning of time. It has been around since the Paleolithic era, when humans harnessed fire, and went through the Neolithic Revolution, Bronze and Iron Age civilizations. Since then, as we’ve been able to observe and control microstructure, we’ve been striving to create better materials. The development of human civilization and the advancement of materials have gone hand-in-hand, as evidenced by the fact that historians do not distinguish between the Stone Age and the Iron Age, but rather the Neolithic and Iron Ages. It is easy to predict from human history that the further development of basic science, the IT industry, and the space industry, which are heading towards the cutting edge, must be supported by the development of materials science.
The future of materials science is very bright, especially in conjunction with nanotechnology, which has the potential to lead to new innovations. Nanomaterials allow for the development of stronger, lighter materials that can be used in a variety of fields, including medicine, electronics, and energy. Materials engineering students are constantly researching, gaining new knowledge, and advancing their skills to prepare for this future. In doing so, materials science will play an important role in improving the quality of human life and achieving sustainable development.