You are in the final year of your apprenticeship, working in a material testing laboratory. Your line manager has asked you to put together a booklet explaining materials, and their properties to the newly appointed apprentices. You need to demonstrate how composition and structure influence the properties of metal and polymer materials.

i) Your first task is to describe the body-centred cubic cell, face-centred cubic cell and hexagonal close-packed cell atomic structures and identify the molecular structures associated with amorphous and crystalline polymer structures, providing examples of their properties, characteristics and applications.

ii) You must relate material properties to practical applications. List and describe physical, mechanical, electrical and thermal material properties and identify materials that are associated with these properties. Consider applications for each property, if it were to be used in an engineering context.

iii) Finally, explain how atomic structures are determined by material composition and how these structures determine the properties of the material.

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Introduction Material selection plays a crucial role in engineering design affecting performance longevity and cost Understanding the connection between composition structure and properties helps engi... View the full answer