the use of ces edupack - granta design · the use of ces edupack at all levels of higher education...

1

The use of CES EduPack at all levels of Higher Education

Arlindo Silva1, Mike. F. Ashby2, Hannah Melia3 1Materials Education Consultant, Edu. Division, Granta Design Ltd., Cambridge, UK

2Emeritus Professor, Dep. Engineering, Cambridge University, UK

3Teaching Resources Team Leader, Edu. Division, Granta Design Ltd, Cambridge, UK

1st Edition, December 2012

© 2012 Granta Design Limited

Synopsis

At the time of writing, CES EduPack is used in over 800 colleges and universities

worldwide. In order to understand the use of CES EduPack around the world, a

selected number of academics were contacted by Granta Design to establish how

they use CES EduPack with their students. This paper compiles that information.

Figure 1 depicts the countries from where contributions were received. In the

following pages, the paper recounts the experiences that academics have had with

CES EduPack, in some cases for more than 15 years, in other cases with hundreds

of students. This paper is divided into several sections according to different levels of

higher education, from undergraduate to PhD level, followed by the use of CES

EduPack in pre-University courses and in design projects across different

Universities. A list of contacts for the contributing academics, whose effort and time

we greatly appreciate, is provided at the end. Although the paper is not intended as

the ultimate reference about CES EduPack, it nevertheless provides useful

information about exciting things being done worldwide and can potentially give you

fresh ideas to use in your teaching.

Figure 1. The countries from which some institutions contributed to this paper. The map was drawn in CES

EduPack with a database of “States of the World” available from our Teaching Resources Website.

Contents Synopsis ................................

Introduction ................................

CES EduPack in undergraduate courses

CES EduPack in MSc courses

CES EduPack in PhD courses

CES EduPack use in pre

Professors’ views on the use of

List of contacts ................................

References ................................

Introduction

Materials teaching has been a topic of extensive concern in recent years. Teaching

of materials science to materials science students has manage

somewhat over the years. However, the same topic taught to students of other

disciplines has evolved substantially (

breadth has increased dramatically not least because the number of com

available materials has increased

about materials has therefore to cope with increasing content, and

context where the competition for space in the engineering curricula is fierce.

technological development

broaden what have become the traditional boundaries of engineering (Dym et al.

2005). The subject of Materials is naturally

engineering (see Figure 1)

research into new materials and at the same time enables breakthrough designs with

1 The International Counsil of Systems Engineers

2 Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate

Figure 2. Materials as a bridging Science.

2

...............................................................................................................

...........................................................................................................

in undergraduate courses ..............................................................

in MSc courses ............................................................................

in PhD courses ............................................................................

use in pre-University studies .......................................................

Professors’ views on the use of EduPack ...........................................................

................................................................................................

..........................................................................................................

teaching has been a topic of extensive concern in recent years. Teaching

of materials science to materials science students has manage


disciplines has evolved substantially (Silva et al. 2012). It is interesting to note that its

breadth has increased dramatically not least because the number of com

available materials has increased significantly in the last three decades. Teaching

about materials has therefore to cope with increasing content, and


Interdisciplinarity is being

pursued at both undergraduate

(Bronet et al. 2003, Silva et al.

2009a) and graduate (Silva et

al. 2009b) levels. The search

for interdisciplinary knowledge

has long been identified as

mandatory for today’s

technological and inn

leaders. This is one of the

goals of INCOSE

Initiative2 and the multiple

graduate level programs

worldwide. Akay calls in his

work for a “renaissance

engineer”, bridging the gaps

between the extremely

specialized engineers that

were at the root of rapid

technological development (Akay, 2008). Others also acknowledge the need to


2005). The subject of Materials is naturally at a crossroads, bridging science and

(see Figure 1). It feeds Science with design requirements that drive


The International Counsil of Systems Engineers – http://www.incose.org Conceive, Design, Implement, Operate – http://www.cdio.org

Figure 2. Materials as a bridging Science.

............... 1

........... 2

.............................. 3

............ 17

............ 21

....................... 22

........................... 22

.................................... 24

.......... 25

teaching has been a topic of extensive concern in recent years. Teaching

of materials science to materials science students has managed to stabilize


. It is interesting to note that its

breadth has increased dramatically not least because the number of commercially

in the last three decades. Teaching

about materials has therefore to cope with increasing content, and to do so in a


y is being

pursued at both undergraduate

2003, Silva et al.

2009a) and graduate (Silva et

) levels. The search

for interdisciplinary knowledge

has long been identified as

mandatory for today’s

technological and innovation

leaders. This is one of the

goals of INCOSE1, the CDIO

and the multiple

graduate level programs

Akay calls in his

work for a “renaissance

engineer”, bridging the gaps

between the extremely

specialized engineers that

he root of rapid

Others also acknowledge the need to


, bridging science and

. It feeds Science with design requirements that drive


3

Where T.U.Lisbon, Portugal

Level 2nd

Year, BSc Mech. Engineering

Course Materials in Engineering Since 2009

Why The course was outdated, boring,

un-motivating and had high fail

rates

Audience 250 students

Benefits Students have a much better

understanding of materials in the

broadest sense and numbers in

properties gain meaning!

new materials. It is precisely these characteristics that make the teaching of materials

extremely important to the next generation of engineers (Silva et al. 2012).

This paper explains how the implementation of CES EduPack in established courses

for a wide range of higher education programs can help educators to balance the

inherent breadth of information on the topic with the necessary depth of knowledge

required from the students upon completion of the course. Several case studies of

active use of CES EduPack in a number of higher education institutions in several

countries are presented and discussed. The courses range from introductory

materials science to capstone design courses, and go on into MSc and PhD levels.

The use of CES EduPack in pre-University courses is also briefly discussed. The

links to manufacturing processes and environmental impact will also be addressed.

CES EduPack in undergraduate courses

CES EduPack is used at the Instituto Superior

Tecnico (IST), the Technical University of

Lisbon, Portugal, in the course on Materials

in Engineering. This course is the second

core course on Materials related topics – the

first being a freshman course on Materials

Science – in a three year Mechanical

Engineering degree. Whilst the Materials

Science course, at the freshman level, uses a

traditional bottom-up approach starting with

the atoms and ending up in materials’

properties, this new course assumes a

design-led approach, closing the cycle of what

would be called a basic materials education for mechanical engineers. Other courses

will then follow, some of them elective, like Mechanical Behaviour of Materials, or

Composite Materials, as examples. The Engineering Materials course also has a

laboratory component in which different materials are tested under tension and

impact, and hardness is measured on standard metal coupons. A total of 250

students take this course every year. The faculty team generally finds that this

design-led approach, together with materials testing in the lab, helps in strengthening

the students’ perception of strength, stiffness and hardness to name just a few.

Figure 3. Examples of a part proposed for selection of materials and processes at the Technical University of Lisbon. From left to right: a vertical aero generator, structure of a bathing chair for the elderly and a pedal box

for a Formula Student/SAE racing car.

4

Where Uni. Birmingham, UK

Level 1st Year, BSc Materials, Civil,

Chemical and Mechanical

Engineering

Course Properties and

Applications of Materials Since 2007

Why Previous experience with CES

EduPack in advanced course


Benefits Can be used as a “textbook”

resource. Students like the

software, some use it for other

courses even if it is not required

“�[general objectives

are for] students to have

an appreciation of

materials properties

(mechanical / physical

etc), [and] to discuss

how to identify key

properties for an

application and be able

to select a material for

that application based

on the properties

identified. EduPack

supports this”

Dr Claire Davis

CES EduPack is used throughout the course. Also, the visual nature of most of the

resources used has helped to retain students in class for the best part of the

semester, and provides an excellent overall perspective of the positioning of each

family of materials.

The software is used in most of the classes to visually exemplify theoretical

constructs with data from real materials. Some of the slides and figures presented in

class come from the teaching resources available from Granta’s Teaching Resources

Website, with some modifications to fit with the style of teaching and language of the

professor. It is also used in the final exam, where a material property chart is

presented, especially built for that purpose, on which the students need to perform

some calculations, supporting decisions on the best material for a given application,

with a set of objectives, requirements, constraints and free variables. A selected

group of students are involved in project work.

They have to select the appropriate material

for a number of parts in a product designed in

another course. They have to also decide

what will be the manufacturing process for a

given batch size (Silva and Fontul, 2012).

Figure 3 shows examples of parts and

products proposed for material and process

selection.

The University of Birmingham, UK has

been using CES EduPack since 2007 in a

course on Properties and Applications of

Materials. The course is taught to

approximately 350 students as a core course

for the Materials, Civil, Chemical and Mechanical Engineering and BioMedical BSc

programs. Dr Claire Davis, head lecturer for this course, understood and used the

Ashby selection diagrams from a previous experience in

lecturing and knew that the database was a good and

reliable source of data for students. Also, since the

students need CES EduPack in subsequent courses

on their program, this would ensure some continuity.

In this first year course, the software is used more like

an interactive textbook resource for definitions of

properties and to support general understanding of

properties discussed in lectures. The general

objectives of the course are “for students to have an

appreciation of materials properties (mechanical /

physical etc), be able to define these properties and

know how they are measured”. Also,

they need to be able to “discuss how to identify key

properties for an application and to select a material

for that application based on the properties identified”

according to Dr Davis. The EduPack, although not

considered essential to support these general

objectives, is certainly considered desirable, as it

5

illustrates the properties under study with

reliable data. Selection charts are not

used in this course, although other

courses use it at the University of

Birmingham. The software is made

available on all Engineering computer

clusters and additional CDs for personal

use are made available to students who

request them.

An example of a short exercise is given

in Figure 4. Pre-1992, UK 1p and 2p

coins were made from bronze (97wt%

copper; 2.5wt%zinc and 0.5wt% tin). However, since September 1992 the coins have

been made from a mild steel core and electroplated in copper. Students are then

asked to a) Calculate the cost of the ‘new’ and ‘old’ coins, and b) Compare the

densities of bronze and mild steel and determine how the mass and diameter of the

coins were kept consistent for both types of coins.

Longer exercises revolve around different topics, depending on the program the

students come from when taking the course on Properties and Applications of

Materials. Examples based on golf club shafts (Sports Materials students), hip

replacement prostheses (BioMedical Engineering students) or large telescope mirror

supports (Mechanical Engineering students) may be assigned (see Figure 5).

The Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft in Berlin, Germany (HTW Berlin) is

also a user of CES EduPack since 2010. A total of approximately 200 students use it

every year for a number of courses, from first to fourth year of study. The modules on

Materials Science 1, 2 and 3 all run in the first year of the BSc degrees for

mechanical engineers and automotive engineers. Another course on Materials and

the Environment is taken by 4th year students with a very diverse background:

economists with specialty in engineering, life science engineering and regenerative

energy engineering. Dr Anja Pfennig finds CES EduPack really useful, both to her

and her students: materials science comes to life for engineering students “by

Figure 5. Examples of longer exercises at the University of Birmingham (Davis 2009)

Figure 4. A short exercise around copper at the University of Birmingham (Davis 2009)”

6

Where University of Porto, Portugal

Level 2nd/

3rd

Year, BSc Mech. Eng.

Course Materials Science &

Engineering, Materials for

Mechanical Construction I

and II Since 2007

Why Mainly for the wealth of

information in the database

Audience 450 students overall

Benefits Finding everything in just one

place with enough accuracy and

reliability

“�[materials science]

comes to life for

engineering students by

enhancing the fun of

use of tools that let you

do things without you

knowing that you are

actually studying”

Dr Anja Pfennig

Where Hochschule für Technik und

Wirtschaft (HTW) Berlin, Germany

Level 1st to 4

th Year

Course Materials Science 1, 2 and 3

Materials and the

Environment Since 2010

Why Breadth of study and fun to use


Benefits More general view of materials

science and the ways in which it

touches on different fields of study

enhancing the fun of use of tools that let

you do things without you knowing that

you are actually studying”. CES EduPack

is used for demos in class, to solve

homework and exercises given to

students and also for project work. The

software is installed permanently in the

University computer lab, and some

students have it installed on their laptops.

Dr Pfennig also makes extensive use of

Granta Design’s teaching resources, as

she finds them very helpful in areas where

she needs some extra guidance and new ideas for exercises. The joint use of CES

EduPack and the other teaching resources helps the students to acquire a more

general view of materials science and the ways in which it touches on different fields,

something that is particularly interesting for the 4th year

course on Materials and the Environment but also of

value for the 1st year students.

Installing CES EduPack and teaching with it took time

in thinking about the goals of the course, where and

how to apply CES and how to assess the student’s

work. Nevertheless, it supports very well the objectives

of the courses where it is used – some of the learning

outcomes of the Materials Science 1, 2 and 3 modules

are: understanding the interdependence of material

properties, get a feeling for what are the values of the

often used engineering properties, knowing how materials behave, and how can

properties be manipulated theoretically. These can all be immediately illustrated with

charts, , e.g. hardening mechanisms of metals and their influence on mechanical

properties, or to show the influence of carbon content in steels on their strength. In

the module on Materials and Environment “students love to play with options of

materials or end-of-life to optimize their designs or just compare their results to those

of the other student groups”. However, because the Eco Audit tool is so easy to use,

students often neglect the scientific

background needed to discuss the results,

or the huge variability of the data, so this

often needs to be stressed during class.

Students find it very rewarding to use CES

EduPack and often look for ways of

retaining a copy of the software, even if it

is not required in other courses.

The School of Engineering at the

University of Porto, in Portugal (FEUP)

uses CES EduPack as a campus wide

resource. Several courses at the

undergraduate level use it in different

“�the need to discuss

on a multidisciplinary

level all the restrictions

and goals of the [wheel

rim] project”

Prof Cesar Azevedo

ways to support teaching.

Engineering the students have a brief introduction to the software, looking for data on

Mechanical Construction II, focused mainly on ceramic materials, the students have

two assignments on which they have to produce reports. The first assignment is an

analyis and discussion of a published scientific paper, while the second assignment

focuses on a particular real

plugs, to sinks, to kitche

students have to come up with manufacturing processes capable of producing that

part, describe what is the chemical composition a

also how the processing will affect the

on all of these aspects. CES

further down. The push to a

active researcher and lecturer in several fields

EduPack short course from

The University of São Paulo

is a user of CES EduPack

students have access to the software in a

room specifically used f

Materials Selection during

study in their Mechanical Engineering

program (in Brazil, the undergraduate degree

in Engineering takes 5 years to complete).

After a one hour class explaining the

principles, the students have

period to cover a number of hands

exercises for assessment

project covering materials selection and

easily to the software, but they would like

Figure 6. Wheel rims as a materials selection project.

7

Where University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Level 5th Year, BSc Mech. Eng.

Course Materials SelectionSince 2007

Why Need for an effective teaching tool


Benefits Support for multid

discussions on how materials

selection affects/ is affected by

non-technical constraints

ways to support teaching. In the first year course on Materials Science and


the material records and comparing different classes of

materials. In the second year course of Materials for

Mechanical Construction I, and because this course is

specifically dedicated to metallic materials, the students

also use CES EduPack to find materials data. They

also want to get information on manufactu

processes and materials suppliers for extended, more

accurate information on, for example, thermal

treatments. In the third year course of Materials for


on which they have to produce reports. The first assignment is an


focuses on a particular real-life ceramic component (examples range from spark

hen knives or even tool bits). For both assignments the


part, describe what is the chemical composition and properties of the ceramic,

how the processing will affect them. They use CES EduPack to get information

on all of these aspects. CES EduPack is also used at higher levels of study

further down. The push to a campus wide license was driven by Prof

active researcher and lecturer in several fields related to materials, who took the CES

short course from Prof Mike Ashby in Cambridge in 2010.

o Paulo (USP), Brazil,

EduPack since 2007. The

students have access to the software in a

room specifically used for the course on

during their 5th year of

study in their Mechanical Engineering

program (in Brazil, the undergraduate degree

in Engineering takes 5 years to complete).

After a one hour class explaining the

principles, the students have a two hour

period to cover a number of hands-on

assessment using the software. They also have to present a final

project covering materials selection and Eco Audit, in teams. The students adapt very

easily to the software, but they would like to have ethanol as a fuel for

Figure 6. Wheel rims as a materials selection project.

University of Sao Paulo, Brazil

Year, BSc Mech. Eng.

Materials Selection

Need for an effective teaching tool

60 students

Support for multidisciplinary

discussions on how materials

selection affects/ is affected by

technical constraints

n the first year course on Materials Science and


the material records and comparing different classes of

terials. In the second year course of Materials for

Mechanical Construction I, and because this course is

specifically dedicated to metallic materials, the students

to find materials data. They

to get information on manufacturing

processes and materials suppliers for extended, more

, for example, thermal

. In the third year course of Materials for


on which they have to produce reports. The first assignment is an


life ceramic component (examples range from spark

es or even tool bits). For both assignments the


nd properties of the ceramic, and

to get information

is also used at higher levels of study – see

Prof Jorge Lino, an

related to materials, who took the CES

using the software. They also have to present a final

The students adapt very

to have ethanol as a fuel for Eco Audit

8

Where Vestfold University College,

Norway

Level BSc in Product Design

Course Production and Materials

Technology, Advanced

Materials Selection Since 2007

Why Easily find information about

materials and processes


Benefits Students get more familiarity with

materials and processes and find

it easier to select them for specific

applications

calculations (in Brazil, ethanol is ubiquitous as an automobile fuel).This year’s project

for all teams is to select materials for wheel rims for different vehicles (see Figure 6).

They will have to use multiple objectives and multiple constraints to come up with

materials, and then compare their results with real life wheel rims. The analysis also

creates the opportunity for deeper discussions on eco-design. Prof Cesar Azevedo

needed a teaching tool to help him move from the research institute where he was

based to a teaching position at the University of Sao Paulo, and he found just that in

CES EduPack back in 2007. He found very good background support on Granta’s

Teaching Resources Website in the form of PowerPoint lectures and ready-made

exercises and projects that he then adapts to his teaching. Prof Azevedo further

considers that, looking back, it was actually easier to implement this course than he

thought at first. His emphasis during the course is to make the students understand

that selecting materials and processes is directly dependent of the boundary

conditions of the project (the constraints of the design) and these are not only

Engineering-dependent, but also have a social

and cultural dimension. This “creates the

need to discuss on a multidisciplinary level all

the restrictions and goals of the project” and

CES EduPack is very supportive of this

pedagogic aim.

Prof Ellen Husa at the Faculty of Technology

and Maritime Sciences, Vestfold University

College, Norway relies on CES EduPack to

teach two undergraduate courses in the BSc

in Product Design: the 2nd year course on

Production and Materials Technology and the

3rd year course on Advanced Materials

Selection. Prof Husa started using CES

EduPack after attending one of Prof Ashby’s

short courses in Cambridge as it looked like very interesting software, in which

information about materials was easily searchable and material properties were

explained very simply. Furthermore, the links between materials and manufacturing

processes are done in a way that their structured selection is very straightforward. In

the more introductory course the students have to do a set of exercises to which

some classes are allocated during the semester. In the more advanced course the

students work for two hours every week of the semester using CES EduPack and in

the end they have a project where they have to choose materials and manufacturing

processes for an electronic device for use in a maritime environment. In this latter

course, Prof Husa uses the resources available from Granta’s teaching resources

website extensively, together with one of Prof Ashby’s textbooks (Ashby, 2011).

Overall, CES EduPack is versatile enough that it is possible to use a structured

selection methodology or just go about searching for a material that does the job. In

either case, the student is supported by the software and learns about materials and

processes while using it. The College has a computer room with the software

installed in all computers, but also gives the software to students who want to have it

installed in their laptops, an option that some students take up.

9

Where University of Pretoria, South

Africa

Level BSc in Interior Architecture,

various BEng

Course Material Studies, Materials

Science Since 2005

Why Personal contact with Prof Mike

Ashby


Benefits Get a “feel” for material properties

and use of process universe and

shape together

“� it enabled [�] non-

engineering, visually

oriented students to get

a ‘feel’ for material

properties. Furthermore,

they used the software

to make materials and

process choices

suitable for their

projects.”

Dr Dick Groot

“The survey completed

by 171 students show

that 91% of students

say the software is

applicable to this

course and 81% of

students would like to

learn more about [it]”

Dr Jacqueline Morkel

The Department of Materials Science and Metallurgical

Engineering at the University of Pretoria, South

Africa uses CES EduPack as a campus wide resource

to support, among others, a course on Material Studies

for 25 students of the 3rd year of a BSc degree for the

Department of Interior Architecture, taught by Dr Dick

Groot and a 1st year Materials Science course taught to

1400 BEng students by Dr Jacqueline Morkel. It is very

interesting to understand how students from a non-

Engineering background deal with materials. The

software helped the students to obtain visual

representations of material attributes with which they

were not familiar, such as tensile strength or fracture

strength. Being non-engineering students, the use of

suitable graphs, enabled them to get a “feel” for material properties and understand

how different materials relate to one another. They get familiarized with the

software’s concepts and functions by means of combined demonstrations and

tutorials done mainly hands-on in a computer laboratory (although students can also

have the software in their own laptops if they want to) during about four sessions of 3

hours each during the semester, where some of Granta’s website material is made

available for self-study.

A project has to be done in teams, the

emphasis of which is materials and process

selection, rather than the design. In this

project, the students have to consider

various factors, of which materials and

process selection are the most important.

They also need to complete an Eco Audit,

using the software tools. The results of this

have to feed back into the materials and

process choices. At the end of the semester

a complete written report is required for the

project, as well as an oral presentation.

Instead of detailed lectures on materials

attributes, the approach is for the students to

explore for themselves, after a brief introduction, using

the software. The simple user interface facilitates this,

as well as the backup of the help pages, in-depth help

material, and the video tutorials. Being design oriented

in the first instance, the students are also introduced to

the concept of breaking down their design into

elementary generic shapes using the shape

classification in the software, and from there making

shaping process selections, and then using the tree

function to find materials compatible with the selected

shaping method. This is a powerful approach for design

students.

10

Where University of Applied Science,

Zwickau, Germany

Level BSc of Automotive, Mechanical,

and Textile Engineering

Course Materials Science, Non-

Metallic Materials, Light

Metals, Composite

Materials Since 2004

Why Previous experience with CES for

research, ability to create charts

and diagrams


Benefits Huge amount of data, clear plots,

knowledge acquired is used in

other courses downstream

Faculty has seen over the past few years more requests for the package at

postgraduate level, as the undergraduates move through to advanced studies. This

has progressed to the point where they offer an introduction to the use of the

software for all honours level students in architecture, interior architecture and

landscaping architecture. The student feedback varies from feeling rather hesitant at

first to a full appreciation of the power and applicability of CES EduPack when the

students reach their honours studies. The Department of Interior Architecture is very

happy with the improvement in the students’ knowledge of materials and processes

achieved through this module. The software is also used in the first year course on

Materials Science, using graphs and screen shots of CES EduPack during lectures,

after which assignments are given to students. The students either download CES

EduPack onto their computers or use the copies installed in the computer labs. The

course goes through an “overview of materials, their properties and then specifically

looks in detail at mechanical properties of

materials. Segments of the theory of this

subject [are] well supported and graphically

presented by the software”. A survey was

recently completed “to get feedback from

students as this was the first semester of

using CES EduPack. The survey completed

by 171 students show that 91 % of students

say the software is applicable to this course

and 81 % of students would like to learn more

about [it]”.

The Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau

(WHZ), University of Applied Science,

Germany has been using CES EduPack

since 2005 in a number of courses at the

undergraduate and master levels, for

Automotive, Mechanical and Textile

Engineering. Prof Holger Klose is involved in teaching courses at both levels, and he

finds that the true power of CES EduPack is to have a huge amount of data in just

one place, with the ability to plot clear charts of material data that help you explain

properties for different material groups and rank specific materials as you want. Prof

Klose not only uses the graph functionality, he also uses the literature available from

Granta’s teaching resources website, especially the poster charts for explaining

concepts during the laboratory classes. He found it very easy to use EduPack in his

lectures, as it is extremely intuitive and also very user friendly for students. They can

use it via the computer pools at the University and its use is broadening to other

courses to produce seminar papers (projects of 3 to 6 months) that all students have

to complete and also the diploma projects (6 months in length, typically at the end of

their BSc). One of the tools used in Zwickau is the Eco Audit tool. It requires a

special care in discussing the assumptions made and the future consequences of

present actions in terms of design, providing very enticing and fruitful discussions in

class, leading to deeper understanding of the topic.

Lund University in Sweden is using CES EduPack at the undergraduate and

Master levels, for programs on Mechanical Engineering. The courses range from a

11

Where De Montfort University, UK

Level BSc Product Design

Course Reverse Engineering,

Major Project, Innovative

Design Since 2009

Why To provide more content on



Benefits Help making the students more

independent in their search for

materials and manufacturing

processes; make the students

aware of more materials and

processes

“�dwell deeper in the

principles of materials

selection, challenge

design brief criteria, and

discuss issues relating

to the environment”

Philippe Radlovic

Where Lund University, Sweden

Level BSc Engineering and Design

Course Introduction to

Mechanical Engineering Since 2007

Why Much better compared to

conventional teaching


Benefits Easy and fast way to compare

materials and processes, leading

to deeper knowledge and more

acute critical judgement of

decisions

first year Introduction to Mechanical

Engineering to the MSc level courses on

Materials and Process Selection, and

Recycling Technology. Professors Johan

Persson and Lanny Kirkhorn are users in

these courses since 2007. The MSc level

courses are dealt with separately in this

paper, further down. The first year course,

taking around 150 students each year,

deals with general knowledge about

materials. The students have to do

homework using CES EduPack on their

own computers, some supervised

exercises in class and also longer projects. Both the students and faculty find the

software very user friendly and easy to master at this basic level. The most important

benefit that Profs Persson and Kirkhorn have found in using CES EduPack is that it is

a very easy and fast way of “comparing materials”. They use demos and charts

during classes and find some useful support from Granta’s teaching resources

website.

Students from the BSc in Product Design at

De Montfort University, Leicester, UK have

used CES EduPack since 2009. Several

courses across all years of study use

EduPack: Reverse Engineering 2nd year,

Major Project 3rd year and Innovative Design

4th year. Philippe Radlovic was entrusted with

the task of lecturing specifically about CES

EduPack across all of these modules and got

a good understanding of how CES EduPack

could help his students. He found that “the

teaching of CES EduPack needed to be

embedded not only in materials and

processes teaching but also across all years

of teaching to reap [its full] benefits”. For him,

this approach is something that requires some

effort but can potentially have very high returns, and this approach is still being

implemented at De Montfort University.

Students in their second year use it to understand

principles of materials selection, understand the

consequences of such choices on the environment,

and to learn about different properties and their real life

consequences. Third year students use CES EduPack

to look for suitable new materials, select materials for

their projects, improve their selections with graphs and

other tools, and to weigh and improve the

environmental burden of their designs. Fourth year

students use it to “dwell deeper in the principles of

materials selection, challenge design brief criteria, and discuss issues relating to the

environment”. Students find that

to get “the wrong” answer from a selection project.

actually “does not give answers, just possibilities to explore

approach to foster in-class discussion

very useful to show/demonstrate the potential and ad

compare different designs.

Prof John Metcalf runs a 2

Materials and Process Selection at the

Sheffield Hallam University, UK

is taught to multiple Bachelor programs:

Mechanical, Aerospace, Aeronau

Forensic, Materials, and Automotive

Engineering, and also to Design Technology,

Sports Technology and Computer Aided

Design Technology. Other courses end up

using it as well because it is installed in the

University computer lab. When

started teaching the course

EduPack was already used by his predecessor. N

his “teaching to a deep level of learning

starting with some basic functions like browsing

students complain that “searching does not work like Google”. The assignments get

more complex as the semester progresses, from design limiting properties, to

interpretation and formulation of objectives and constraints, to se

eco audits.

Longer projects are also done on topics as diverse as selecting materials

manufacturing processes

very powerful tool for selecting materials and processes,

thought into how best to convey it to the students, especially for manufacturing

processes: CES EduPack

supports teaching very well, but students often face some difficulties doin

translation of the selection problem into objectives, functions, constraints and free

variables, and grasping the concept of a material performance index and this

requires added effort from the Professor. Putting the whole topic of materials

Figure 7. Knife blades

12

Where Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Level Various BSc programs

Course Materials & Process

SelectionSince 2005

Why It was inherited from the previous

Professor


Benefits Supports teaching to a deep level

of learning; massive database of

reliable data


Students find that advanced use it is not as easy as it look

” answer from a selection project. In Philippe Radlovic’s words, it

not give answers, just possibilities to explore” which is a very good

class discussion. The graph function and the Eco

very useful to show/demonstrate the potential and advantages of a design a

compare different designs.

John Metcalf runs a 2nd year course on

Materials and Process Selection at the

Sheffield Hallam University, UK. The course

is taught to multiple Bachelor programs:

Mechanical, Aerospace, Aeronautical,

Forensic, Materials, and Automotive

Engineering, and also to Design Technology,

Sports Technology and Computer Aided

Design Technology. Other courses end up

using it as well because it is installed in the

University computer lab. When Prof Metcalf

tarted teaching the course in 2005 CES

was already used by his predecessor. Nevertheless, it really does support

his “teaching to a deep level of learning”. Several assignments are given to students,

starting with some basic functions like browsing and searching, although some



interpretation and formulation of objectives and constraints, to selection

Longer projects are also done on topics as diverse as selecting materials

manufacturing processes for knife blades or engine blocks. The Ashby approach is a

very powerful tool for selecting materials and processes, but it requires time and


EduPack makes it as easy as possible. Overall, the software

supports teaching very well, but students often face some difficulties doin




Figure 7. Knife blades and engine blocks as materials and processes selection projects.

Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Various BSc programs

Materials & Process

Selection

It was inherited from the previous

140 students

Supports teaching to a deep level

of learning; massive database of

reliable data


as easy as it looks. It is easy

Radlovic’s words, it

which is a very good

co Audit tool are

vantages of a design and to

ly does support

”. Several assignments are given to students,

and searching, although some



lection, and finally to

Longer projects are also done on topics as diverse as selecting materials and

The Ashby approach is a

but it requires time and


Overall, the software

supports teaching very well, but students often face some difficulties doing a full




and engine blocks as materials and processes selection projects.

13

Where UCFEI, São Paulo, Brazil

Level Various BSc in Engineering

Course Metallic Materials,

Manufacturing Processes

and Materials Selection Since 2008

Why Need for strong correlation

between materials properties,

processing and their performance

in engineering projects


Benefits Wealth of data, structured

selection methodology, links with

manufacturing, students love it!

Where University of Cambridge, UK

Level BSc Engineering, Manufacturing

Engineering

Course Materials, Bicycle Design Since Since the 90’s

Why To take a design-led approach,

visually appealing


Benefits Help in understanding the issues

in matching materials and

processes to a design

selection into an overall environmental perspective, within the history of mankind also

takes some effort from the Professor, as well as discussing what are the active

constraints and how best to visualize them in a way that captures the students’

attention. Above all, the students appreciate the approach and realize how good it is,

and feel they would be much more confident having it in their real life jobs. They

understand the relevance of materials and

processes selection and acknowledge the

privilege to access a massive database without

having to disperse on books and on-line

searches and potentially getting data that is

unreliable.

The University Center of FEI in São Paulo,

Brazil uses CES EduPack as a campus wide

resource in various courses on their

undergraduate Engineering programs: Metallic

Materials on their 3rd year taught by Prof

Mauricio Silva and Correlation of

Manufacturing Processes and Materials

Selection on their 5th year taught by Prof

William Naville. Profs Silva and Naville found the

approach very easy and had help from their colleague Prof Rodrigo Magnabosco that

used to teach their course with the software previously. The software is used during

class by the students in the computer labs (students do not have a copy on their

laptops) and then they use it outside of class to do homework and projects. The

materials selection methodology is the base line for the 3rd year course, while the

link between materials and manufacturing processes is the most important topic for

the 5th year course.

It was noted by Profs Silva and Naville that their students get excited by solving

problems using the software, and the 5th year students feel somewhat frustrated that

they are only aware of CES EduPack very late in their degree programs. Prof Naville

also finds that there must be some effort in the classroom to explain to the students

that the results coming from a selection project must be discussed and understood

by the students, and not simply accepted as the ultimate truth, and that is the true

power of CES EduPack. Also, the difficulty of CES EduPack in dealing with a chain of

manufacturing processes, as is commonly the case in real life to produce a

component, provides points of discussion in class and forces students to interact

more closely with the software to try

alternative processes.

The University of Cambridge, UK has been

using CES EduPack since mid 90’s as a

campus wide resource and has been

accumulating experience in teaching with it at

both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Prof Hugh Shercliff has been involved in this

process from the beginning, first in

developing the materials selection

14

Where M.I.T., USA

Level BSc Materials Science and

Engineering

Course Economic and

Environmental Issues in

Materials Selection Since 2005

Why Provide students with a broad

database


Benefits Having access to the large

database and wealth of data,

especially eco

“�to develop teaching

methods around

property charts (e.g.

‘process trajectories’ to

illustrate process-

microstructure-property

pathways in pairs of

properties)”

Prof Hugh Shercliff

“�understand what the

issues are in matching


to a design, and how

aspects of the design,

the material and the

process can strongly

interact”

Prof Hugh Shercliff

“�a comprehensive

perspective on the

materials selection

process”

Dr Randolph Kirchain

methodology as a research activity and then in

restructuring the general introduction Materials course for

all engineering students, and he finds the software

tremendously helpful as a multi-purpose tool, backed with

reliable data and giving some visual appeal with useful

charts to otherwise boring and tedious tables of data.

Since assessment is still done essentially in written

exams, CES EduPack is also used to printout hardcopy

charts for use in the exams.

Prof Shercliff uses CES EduPack occasionally for research,

but mostly “to develop teaching methods around property charts (e.g., ‘process

trajectories’ to illustrate process-microstructure-property pathways in pairs of

properties)”. The students of the introductory 1st year course on Materials have

lecture demos and question sheets that can be done

using CES EduPack or printed charts. These question

sheets revolve around, for example, lightweight

material selection or process selection. These students

need to understand “what the issues are in matching

materials and processes to a design, and how aspects

of the design, the material and the process can strongly

interact”. What CES EduPack is less good at doing is

helping the teaching of what to ask about a product in a

systematic way, and this is where an experienced

academic is essential to help guide students in the

correct path. Having a catalogue of answers is not as

important as knowing what questions to ask and where to find the data when

selecting materials for a specific application,

in Prof Shercliff’s opinion. When it comes to

sustainability issues, using numbers instead

of adjectives to quantify impacts is

extremely important, and CES EduPack

supports the data side well. Methodologies

for applying systematic analysis to choose

materials and processes – with an “inherent

risk in students being too automatic and

stopping thinking about what they are

doing”, are also a strong point of CES

EduPack.

The Massachusetts Institute of

Technology in the USA has been using

CES EduPack since 2005. Dr Randolph Kirchain uses it

to support his teaching in the Junior/Senior course on

Economic and Environmental Issues in Materials

Selection to the BSc in Materials Science and

Engineering. He wants to give his students “a

comprehensive perspective on the materials selection

process”. Because the students select their own

15

Where Case Western Reserve

University, USA

Level BSc Engineering

Course Chemistry of Materials,

Introduction to Materials

Science and Engineering,

Materials and Energy Since 2007

Why Curiosity, and having seen ‘Ashby

plots’ in our textbook (Callister)

Audience Around 700 students

Benefits Accuracy of data enables focus

on science and engineering

“The ability that the

software affords to

explore issues of

resource consumption

associated with

materials manufacture

and use has enabled me

to [�] integrate a

lifelong interest in

sustainability into my

professional activities”

Prof Mark De Guire

projects, they need a sufficiently broad database of materials and eco properties data

to support them. CES EduPack is used by Dr Kirchain to show examples and

illustrate concepts, so that the students can then use the software in their own

projects. They become very engaged in their projects, as they are the ones that have

to define the problem and then solve it, so asking the right questions becomes as

important as answering them. There is no negative feedback from students as far as

CES EduPack is concerned, but they would like to have more advanced cases where

the tool is applied, to serve as examples for their own projects. Introducing the

software in teaching was “very easy” and students enjoy having access to all the data

in just one place, because their projects generally involved a laborious and time

consuming search for data from various

sources.

The Case Western Reserve University in

the USA has been using CES EduPack

since 2007, and as a Campus wide

resource from 2008 onwards. In particular,

it is used in three undergraduate courses

lectured by Prof Mark De Guire, to

engineering students. What led Prof De

Guire to start using CES EduPack was

“Curiosity, and having seen ‘Ashby plots’ in

our EMSE 201 textbook (Callister) [R] I

became persuaded of its wider utility in

teaching materials science and

engineering”. It took a moderate effort to embed CES EduPack in his teaching “but

the benefits were worth it”.

The tutorials available directly from the software were very helpful in getting the

students up to speed: one way Prof De Guire found to “entice the students to use

tutorials [was to make the first homework problem as a] ‘scavenger hunt’ where the

answers are encountered while going through the tutorials”. He found a number of

benefits in using CES EduPack, among which “exercises in materials selection

became much more interesting and multidimensional”, and probably most important,

he did not have to worry about the accuracy of data in

the students reports, while the students “did not have

to search through countless volumes of literature to

find them”. The focus of the course then became the

“science and engineering: relationships between

different materials and their properties; broad

generalizations (e.g. levels 1 and 2 in the databases)

or highly specific variations within a material class

(level 3)”. Prof De Guire further explains that the

software enabled a much wider perspective on

materials as a broad topic of teaching and research

allowing him to “embark on new directions [R] and

integrate a lifelong interest in sustainability into my

professional activities”.

16

Where Delft University of Technology,

The Netherlands

Level BSc in Industrial Design

Engineering

Course Industrial Manufacturing Since 2007

Why high-quality material data and

information on manufacturing

processes and process selection


Benefits Material data and useful

information on manufacturing

processes

“The course has

received three awards

for ‘Best Bachelor

Course’ from all

students over a five-year

period. EduPack

contributes to this”

Dr Erik Tempelman

He is now developing an upper-undergraduate-level course on Materials for Energy

and Sustainability to be required for majors in Materials Science and Engineering

(and elective for other disciplines). This endeavour would have been made more

difficult and time consuming “without the availability of CES EduPack, as a hands-on

complement to the books by Ashby (Materials and the Environment), Mackay

(Sustainability — Without the Hot Air) and Allwood et al. (Sustainable Materials with

Both Eyes Open)”. Overall, CES EduPack supports a number of teaching objectives:

awareness of the ranges of values of a wide variety of materials properties across

many classes of materials; appreciation of the underlying causes of relationships

among various materials properties; ability to solve certain materials selection

problems graphically; understanding of the resource consumption involved in the

manufacture, use, and end-of-life treatment of engineering materials. The students

download the software from a central server if they want to use in their own laptops,

or use the installed copies in the student computer labs at the University. They use it

to solve assigned homework problems for the 1st year courses of Chemistry of

Materials and Materials and Energy and the 2nd to 4th year course on Introduction to

Materials Science and Engineering taught by Prof De Guire. Some students also use

it in senior design projects, summer

internships and sponsored design

competitions.

The Delft University of Technology, The

Netherlands, has a campus wide license of

CES EduPack since 2007. CES EduPack is

used across multiple courses in their BSc

program on Industrial Design Engineering,

where “having a copy of the EduPack is

mandatory for students”. It is used not only

in the various design engineering courses,

but also in design projects, notably the 2nd

year project on Product Embodiment &

Detail Design. One of the various design engineering courses that use CES EduPack

is the 2nd year course on Industrial Manufacturing, coordinated by Dr Erik

Tempelman. CES EduPack is “part and parcel of our

new BSc program, first introduced in 2007” in Dr

Tempelman’s words, and the benefits of using it range

from having materials data at hand to creating

awareness among students to the information on

manufacturing processes. Simple demos in plenary

classes together with homework questions worked by

small groups of students with teachers’ assistance are

used effectively in this course. There are “important

differences in how we approach manufacturing

processes in our course as compared to how the

EduPack is structured”, but the use of the software is fairly straightforward. The

course revolves around the “manufacturing process triangle”, where the students are

made aware of the complex interaction between function, cost and quality and the

trade-offs that need to be put in place to manufacture stuff. A large portion of the

students use MacBooks, but “running the software via BootCamp or similar appears

17

Where Zhejiang University, P.R.China

Level MEng Materials Engineering

Course Materials Design &

Processing Since 2011

Why Previous experience as a student


Benefits Very good support not only from

the software, but also from the

lectures and exercises on the

teaching resource website

“I personally feel that

the teaching resources

offered on [the] website

have been really

supportive for my

lecture preparation and

students guidance”

Dr Xiang Li

Where Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea,

Universidad Jaime I, Universidad

de Cádiz, Spain

Level Undergraduate, various programs

Course Design, various Since 2012

Why Need of universal baseline data

Benefits Having used EduPack in

Materials Science courses, using

it again in a design project is

straightforward

to give little difficulty”. This course has received three awards for Best BSc course

from all students over a five year period. CES EduPack also contributes to this, as a

background tool for data and information on manufacturing processes.

CES EduPack also serves as a tool to

support interuniversity teaching. idM@ti is

an interuniversity network for innovative

teaching in the field of Materials Science

and Engineering that was created in 2010

by the initiative of seven Spanish

universities and is widely open to all the

Spanish speaking community. The network

aims to share experiences and educational

resources with continuous improvement in

teaching as its ultimate goal. In 2012 a new

experience in ‘’Project Based Learning’’ involving three universities in this network:

Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, Universidad Jaime I, and Universidad de Cádiz was

setup. The project has been developed with students from different engineering

disciplines (Industrial Engineering and Industrial Design), with previous knowledge on

Materials Science. The project objectives are slightly different at each university but

they all share a common aim: to elaborate a proposal to launch a new product to the

razors market, with students taking the roles of Industrial Designers and Materials

and Process Engineers. For the development of this product, the teams had

meetings where they discuss the organisational tasks, the approaches to use, the

results and the proposal itself with the support of CES EduPack. During this project,

the students are encouraged to contact their peers from other universities and share

information. The experience has been extremely positive from the perspectives of

both students and academics.

CES EduPack in MSc courses

Dr Xiang Li is an academic at the Department

of Materials Science and Engineering at the

Zhejiang University, People’s Republic of

China, where CES EduPack is used to teach

a course on Materials Design and Processing,

at an MSc level. The course has been running

in the current format since 2011, when Dr Li

decided to use the software with a class of 30

students. He

studied in the

UK before

returning to

China, and he had a very good experience with the

use of CES EduPack as a student. The teaching

resources available from the Teaching Resources

Website gave him real support for preparing

lectures and devising case studies and exercises.

He then used mostly charts plotted with CES

Prof Ashby to build his own lectures. In the end, embedding the software in his

teaching was quite easy, because students do mostly project work and weekly

homework assignments using CES

previous courses on Materials Science, so the students should all have prior

knowledge about basic concepts around materials and manufacturing. This course is

more about using the knowledge to make

informed decisions and being able to use

data to select materials and processes in a

structured way.

As mentioned previously, the School of

Engineering at the University of Porto,

Portugal (FEUP) uses CES

campus wide resource. The students have

prior knowledge of the software (see above)

and take full advantage of the structured

selection procedures in the course on

Materials Selection in their 2

Automotive Engineering. They u

range of variables and constraints, at the level that best suits their interest. The group

design background, where knowledge about materials is often trans

superficially than in engineering. CES

background knowledge on materials with the use of the science notes

more visual way of engaging with

way of learning too. Projects that require a certain level of concept design are given

to students, and a part of these have to do with selecting appropriate materials and

processes. One such example is given in Figure

Figure 8. A highway lighting system that takes advantage of wind, either natural or induced by the moving cars, to produce energy to

supply the lamps at night.

18

Where University of Porto, Portugal

Level Various MSc programs

Course Materials Selection,

Materials & ProcessesSince 2008

Why Selection tools, wealth of data

Audience 50 students ov

Benefits Very good data for design

projects, but also support for

different background knowledge

of students taking the courses

He then used mostly charts plotted with CES EduPack and parts of lecture units from

Ashby to build his own lectures. In the end, embedding the software in his


omework assignments using CES EduPack. The course taught by



knowledge to make

informed decisions and being able to use

data to select materials and processes in a

As mentioned previously, the School of

University of Porto,

(FEUP) uses CES EduPack as a

ce. The students have

prior knowledge of the software (see above)

and take full advantage of the structured

selection procedures in the course on

Materials Selection in their 2nd year of the MSc on Production, Development and

Automotive Engineering. They use the software for selecting materials with a wide


of students taking this course

is small, allowing for a better

interaction among students.

In the MSc program of

and Product Development,

with an intake of around 25

students every year, CES

EduPack is used in two

courses: Materials and

Processes, and Project Lab.

While in the first course the

software is explained in class

and some exercises are

worked by the

second the students use the

software to select materials

and manufacturing processes

for specific applications. The

students in this MSc program

usually come from a product

design background, where knowledge about materials is often trans

superficially than in engineering. CES EduPack lets the students acquire some

background knowledge on materials with the use of the science notes

more visual way of engaging with them because they generally have a more visual

. Projects that require a certain level of concept design are given


processes. One such example is given in Figure 8, where the student has to select

A highway lighting system that takes advantage of wind, the moving cars, to produce energy to

supply the lamps at night.

University of Porto, Portugal

Various MSc programs

Materials Selection,

Materials & Processes

Selection tools, wealth of data

50 students overall

Very good data for design-build

projects, but also support for

different background knowledge

of students taking the courses

and parts of lecture units from

Ashby to build his own lectures. In the end, embedding the software in his


. The course taught by Dr Li builds on



year of the MSc on Production, Development and

se the software for selecting materials with a wide


of students taking this course

is small, allowing for a better

interaction among students.

In the MSc program of Design

and Product Development,

with an intake of around 25

students every year, CES

is used in two

courses: Materials and

Processes, and Project Lab.

While in the first course the

software is explained in class

and some exercises are

students, in the

second the students use the

software to select materials

and manufacturing processes

for specific applications. The

students in this MSc program

usually come from a product

design background, where knowledge about materials is often transmitted more

lets the students acquire some

background knowledge on materials with the use of the science notes and provides a

generally have a more visual

. Projects that require a certain level of concept design are given


, where the student has to select

19

Where Catholic University of Leuven,

Belgium

Level MSc in Science and Engineering

Course Materials Selection Since 2008

Why Awareness of Ashby’s textbooks


Benefits Better understanding of the link

between processing,

microstructure and properties

when comparing materials

Where Lund University, Sweden

Level MSc Engineering and Design

Course Materials and Process

Selection, Recycling

Technology Since 2007

Why Much better compared to

conventional teaching


Benefits Deeper knowledge and more

acute critical judgement of

decisions when selecting for


“�the software is very

straightforward and the

textbooks provide a solid

background and

support”

Dr Kim Vanmeensel

“�much better when

compared to

conventional [ways of]

teaching”

Prof Johan Persson

materials and manufacturing processes to produce the turbines attached to a

highway lighting system to produce energy.

At the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven,

Belgium Dr Kim Vanmeensel lectures a

course on Materials Selection for an MSc

program in Science and Engineering. Prior

knowledge of Prof Ashby’s books and

awareness of the bubble charts led to the

decision of using CES EduPack in the course

since 2008. The extensive resources

available to academics through Granta’s

teaching resources website is also used by Dr

Vanmeensel, combining his own material,

often created with CES EduPack with existing lecture units. Implementing the

software in teaching takes some time, but “the software

is very straightforward and the textbooks provide a

solid background and support”. The software is

available in the computer rooms, but plans are being

made to have the students install copies in their own

laptops. The students are asked to select materials for

a specific product/component that usually involves

consideration of thermal and mechanical constraints

and in the end they also have to use the Eco Audit tool.

With this, students are meant to understand that materials selection really depends

on the type of loading a component experiences and learn to critically compare

appropriate materials for a specific component, including the way of shaping them.

Since the students taking this course have a materials science background, the link

between material production and manufacturing, the generated microstructures and

the thermal / electrical / mechanical properties that derive from that are particularly

important. CES EduPack supports this very

well and Dr Vanmeensel notes that some

students keep using the software in other

courses, even if it not required. At another

campus in KULeuven, Dr Jan Ivens has had

a similar experience in the same course.

As mentioned previously, Lund University,

in Sweden has used CES EduPack at an

MSc level since 2007. The courses on

Materials and Process Selection, and

Recycling

Technology,

taught by

Professors

Johan Persson and Lanny Kirkhorn are from the

Mechanical Engineering degree program. Besides

homework and supervised exercises in class, students

20

“� [an exposure to]

systematic material

selection plus an

awareness of

engineering issues, in

particular,

manufacturing

opportunities and

limitations associated

with selections”

Dr Colin Burvill

Where University of Cambridge, UK

Level MSc Manufacturing Engineering,

MPhil Industrial Systems and

Manufacturing

Course Sustainable

Manufacturing,

Manufacturing Processes Since Since the 90’s

Why Project work, wealth of data

Audience 50 overall

Benefits Help in understanding the issues

in matching materials and

processes to a design

Where University of Melbourne, Australia

Level MSc Mechanical Design

Course Design & Manufacturing I Since 1997

Why Materials selection is more than

stress and stiffness


Benefits Systematic materials selection

and awareness of the link with

manufacturing

also do longer projects using CES EduPack. The students are required to get in

depth knowledge about materials and processes but also about selection

methodologies for both. The software supports this very well and is much better

when “compared to conventional [ways of] teaching”, according to Profs Persson and

Kirkhorn.

The University of Melbourne, Australia is

an early adopter of CES EduPack. It has

been present at that institution since the

1990s. It is used at an MSc in Mechanical

Design on the Design and Manufacturing I

course by Dr Colin Burvill. A very extensive

experience in the use of the software leads

Dr Burvill to state that the most benefit it

brings to his students is an exposure to

“systematic material selection plus an

awareness of engineering issues, in particular, manufacturing opportunities and

limitations associated with selections”. The software is used in lectures, workshops,

student assignments and in preparing problems for the final exams. The introduction

of the selection methodology is “not without conceptual hurdles, for example size

factor is a conceptual hurdle for students [but] the

various texts are of great assistance”. The software can

only be used in the computer labs from the School of

Engineering, whereas during the exams, the students

have paper copies of selected or specially prepared

charts.

Overall the software supports teaching very well. It

further enables students to be aware that “successful

design is not only associated with structural integrity

(stress and deflection calculations) but that issues such

as material selection can have a substantial bearing on

whether the eventual products are successful. Material

selection has implications – manufacturing,

availability, reliability, end-of-life

recyclability, etc.”. Dr Burvill uses a number

of case studies alongside CES EduPack,

like the evolution of materials in aircraft

structures from wood to CFRP, or the video

on “The Flight of the Gossamer Condor”, a

human powered airplane. Together, these

help contextualizing the inherently dynamic

nature of the materials selection problem.

A few courses at the Masters level also

have support from CES EduPack at the

University of Cambridge, UK, as previously

mentioned, at two graduate programs: the MPhil in Industrial Systems and

21

Where Joint degree, various Univ. in

Portugal, with MIT, USA

Level 1st Year, PhD Engineering

Course Technology Evaluation &

Selection Since 2008

Why Need for breadth and depth of

resources

Audience 20 international students

Benefits Supports different background

knowledge

“�CES EduPack for

this design-build project

is crucial, as students

need to build a working

prototype for their

product by the end of

the project [in a] limited

amount of time available

[�] so a thorough

selection of materials is

of the essence”

Prof Arlindo Silva

Manufacturing and the MSc in Manufacturing Engineering. In the latter program, a

course on Manufacturing Processes includes a lecture using extensively the Eco

Audit tool from CES EduPack and also some coursework activity. In the former

program the software is mostly used for individual student projects, often outlining

potential databases for different classes of products. Recent examples of these

projects include: joining methods for structural glass, recycling of medical products,

sustainable design of panels for buildings,or fibre-based products and textiles. Since

all the students have had prior knowledge of CES EduPack in their programs, its use

now becomes more of a stand alone use with guidance from the tutors, where the

selection tools and the links between materials, manufacturing and the specialized

databases come into play when necessary. Prof Shercliff stresses, though, that

because students by now understand how the selection methodology works, they

can stop thinking about it when developing their projects and just do it automatically

without thinking deeply about the questions they are asking the software. As a

consequence, a sound analysis of the selection outcomes is fundamental to get

meaningful results and eventually iterate several times and experimenting with

different objectives, functions and constraints.

CES EduPack in PhD courses

The PhD program on Leaders for Technical

Industries, a joint initiative between three

Portuguese Universities (University of

Minho, University of Porto and the

Technical University of Lisbon) and the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology,

Cambridge, USA, is one example of

integration of interdisciplinary knowledge. A

project across two PhD courses on this

program, the Product Design and

Development course (PDD) and the

Technology Evaluation and Selection course (TES) takes

advantage of the courses being taught simultaneously

and builds on the knowledge coming from both to

design and develop a product that has to be

competitive in the market. Because these two courses

are taught at the same time, this offers the opportunity

to complement both courses in terms of breadth of

learning, without losing the necessary depth of a PhD

level course. By using a common project, the student

will experience the usual breadth of the PDD course,

from product planning to production ramp-up, and the

depth of the TES course. The TES course is based on

three major topics: engineering economics, materials

and process selection methods, and process-based

cost modeling, with some marginal coverage of multi

attribute utility analysis and environmental impact

issues. During the semester, the students are expected to

22

turn in several homework assignments meant to keep them on track with their project

work. Each of the homework assignments has feedback from faculty – some from

PDD and some from TES faculty (Silva et al. 2009b; Dori and Silva 2010). Even

though the in-class time is very short, compared to an average semester, students

are always accompanied by faculty feedback on their work. CES EduPack is used

extensively in the TES course lecturing and in the joint project. It provides, with its

level structure, the necessary depth for those students that have a strong

background on Materials but also a quick and easy introduction to Materials for those

who have different backgrounds (like architecture, product design, management, or

economics). The support of CES EduPack for this design-build project is crucial, as

students need to build a working prototype for their product by the end of the project,

and the limited amount of time available means that there isn’t much room for testing

and iterating, so a thorough selection of materials is of the essence.

CES EduPack use in pre-University studies

A lighter version of CES EduPack is also used in French pre-University studies. More

exactly at the Lycées level (16-18 years old students) who take a three year diploma,

”Le Baccalauréat” (BAC) in different fields of study that will then allow students to

apply for Universities, Engineering Schools and other educational paths. At the

moment CES EduPack is mostly used in the STI2D BAC (Industrial Sciences and

Technologies and Sustainable Development) which aims to teach students about

sustainability (with emphasis on materials and eco-design). More and more lycées

use it in other scientific BAC areas.

Granta is currently working on an even more simplified version for use in Collèges

(12-16 years old students). Professors Jean Philippe Maffre and Jean-Noel Chouard,

from the Lycée Pre de Cordy, Sarlat and the Lycée Victor Berard, Morez,

respectively, have used CES EduPack for a number of years. They both lecture in

Lycées in the BAC STI2D field of study, but also at the BTS level (for technicians

education, post-BAC). They find that it conveys a very simple approach to materials

and processes, but also supports independent study and new ways to discover

materials and manufacturing processes, and how they can be selected together. The

databases are very helpful and detailed and the resources from the Teaching

Resources Website have helped inspire these academics, with plenty of exercises

and examples.

Figure 9. Some of the prototypes developed within the PDD&TES projects at the MIT-Portugal program, from left to right: Wetsuit washer, Car platform, BabyAnywhere, Keep walking.

23

Students use the software in the Lycées for their own project work and hands-on

exercise sessions. The important thing, in the words of Profs Maffre and Chouard, is

for the students to be able to build their own structured approach to materials and

processes selection, posing the most appropriate questions instead of using the first

result out of CES EduPack, being aware and mindful of selection criteria. The Eco

Audit tool is also one of the most used features, as it enables students to get a very

fast perception of the implications of their decisions on the environment. The ability to

work autonomously and be sensitive to the relations between material, process and

product are two key objectives for these pre-University students, and CES EduPack

supports these objectives with very structured and informative databases.

Professors’ views on the use of EduPack

CES EduPack is a powerful and visual tool to explain the overall picture of materials.

Although it is heavily rooted in the optimization of materials selection strategies using

material indices, it can also be used efficiently without this approach. The wealth of

data available, particularly in level 3 and in the specialized editions, makes it a

unique reference: one can find in a single place virtually all the information about any

type of material. There are other sources of information, but these are either specific

to a single material class or present numerous holes in the information, rendering it

non-comparable to other data sources. The real value of using CES EduPack in

teaching has many dimensions:

• It enables you to navigate the ‘material universe’ with the level of detail that suits you best

• It provides comparable data across material families

• It gives a clear picture of where different material families stand across all material properties, and provides a good starting point to drill down to the microstructure to explain why this is so

• It enables faculty to create tailor-made plots for use in class, in exams and homework problems for student assessment

• It can be used interactively during class

• You can create your charts before class and save them to use in class afterwards

• You can access the ready-made charts and project files from Granta’s teaching resources website and use them in any way you like for teaching

• It can be used to support the teaching in Materials related courses, but it can equally be used in Design related courses

• It enables selecting materials and manufacturing processes in capstone courses incorporating design-build projects

A number of other views are expressed on our website, from academics that use

CES EduPack and have kindly agreed to have their comments posted. You can view

their comments here: http://www.grantadesign.com/education/examples.htm.

Accessible from this same hyperlink is the full list of worldwide institutions currently

using CES EduPack.

24

Join our growing

academic community to

share your experience

and help enhance

materials teaching

worldwide

List of contacts

We deeply appreciate the help of our growing

academic community for the support they gave us

in the form of their valuable time to compile the

information presented here. Although the list of

academics using CES EduPack is enormous, we

would particularly like to acknowledge those who

contributed, some of whom are listed below. They agreed to have their contact

shown, so if you have any queries regarding the use of CES EduPack, you can

always count on the teaching resources team at Granta

([email protected]) or contact directly one of them:

Institution Contact person Email

U. Melbourne, Australia Colin Burvill [email protected]

Katholieke U. Leuven, Belgium Kim Vanmeensel [email protected]

USP, Brazil Cesar Azevedo [email protected]

Institution Contact person Email

Centro U. da FEI, Brazil Rodrigo Magnabosco [email protected]

Lycée Pre de Cordy, France Jean Philippe Maffre [email protected]

Lycée Victor Berard, France Jean-Noel Chouard [email protected]

HTW Berlin, Germany Anja Pfennig [email protected]

U. A. Sci., Zwickau, Germany Holger Klose [email protected]

Zhejiang U., China Xiang Li [email protected]

Vestfold U. College, Norway Ellen Husa [email protected]

TU Lisbon, Portugal Arlindo Silva [email protected]

FEUP, Portugal Jorge Lino [email protected]

U. Pretoria, South Africa Dick Groot

Jacqueline Morkel [email protected]

[email protected]

Euskal Herriko Unib., Spain Teresa Guraya [email protected]

Universidad. Jaime I, Spain Luis Cabedo [email protected]

Universidad de Cádiz, Spain David Sales [email protected]

Lund University, Sweden Johan Persson [email protected]

Uni. Birmingham, UK Claire Davis [email protected]

U. Cambridge, UK Hugh Shercliff [email protected]

De Montfort U., Leicester, UK Philippe Radlovic [email protected]

9Sheffield Hallam U., UK John Metcalf [email protected]

MIT, USA Randolph Kirchain [email protected]

25

References

Akay, A. (2008) A renaissance in engineering PhD education. European Journal of

Engineering Education, 33(4): p. 403 - 413.

Ashby, M. F. (2011) Materials selection in mechanical design, 4th Edition, Butterworth

Heinemann, Oxford, UK.

Ashby, M. and Johnson, K. (2010) Materials and design – The art and science of material

selection in product design. 2nd

Edition, Butterworth Heinemann, Oxford, UK.

Bronet, F., et al. (2003) Product Design and Innovation: Evolution of an Interdiscipli-nary

Design Curriculum. International Journal of Engineering Education, 19(1): p. 183-191.

Davis, C. (2009) Independent learning using the CES EduPack with large class sizes.

Materials Education Symposium, Cambridge, UK, 3 April.

Dori, Y. J., Silva, A. (2010) Assessing International Product Design & Development Graduate

Courses: The MIT-Portugal as a Case in Point. Advances in Engineering Education, 2:2.

Available from http://advances.asee.org/vol02/issue02/02.cfm.

Dym, C.L., Agogino, A.M., Eris, O., Frey, D.D., Leifer, L.J. (2005) Engineering design thinking,

teaching and learning. Jour. Engineering Education, January 103-119

Silva, A., Henriques E., and Carvalho, A. (2009a) Creativity enhancement in a product

development course through entrepreneurship learning and intellectual property awareness.

European Journal of Engineering Education, 34(1): p. 63 - 75.

Silva, A., Henriques, E., Fontul, M., Faria, L. (2009b) On some innovative aspects of the

EDAM MIT-Portugal Program: the Lisbon perspective. 2nd International Symposium on

Engineering Systems, June 15-17, MIT, Cambridge, Mass.

Silva, A., Fontul, M. (2012) Teaching design in the first years of a traditional mechanical

engineering degree: methods, issues and future perspectives. 4th International Materials

Education Symposium, Cambridge, UK, 12-13 April (poster presentation).

Silva, A., Pereira-Medrano, A.G., Melia, H., Ashby, M., Fry, M. (2012) Materials education:

adapting to needs of the 21st Century. 4th International Symposium of Engineering

Education, Sheffield, UK, 19-20 July.

26

.

Granta’s Teaching Resources website aims to support teaching of materials-related courses in Engineering, Science and Design. The resources come in various formats and are aimed at different levels of student. The website also contains other resources contributed by faculty at the 800+ universities and colleges worldwide using Granta’s CES EduPack. The teaching resource website contains both resources that require the use of CES EduPack and those that don’t.

www.grantadesign.com/education/resources

the use of ces edupack - granta design · the use of ces edupack at all levels of higher education...

Documents