When designing a product, there are many factors to consider — the end user, the environment the product will operate in, and the cost. One key choice that needs to be made is selecting the material(s) that the product will be made from. There are thousands of engineering materials, so how do engineers and designers go about making these decisions? In this learning track on materials selection, we will introduce logical strategies to tackle this challenge. We will start with materials selection using Ashby charts, which introduce the concept of using visual plots of material data during the selection process. Next, in the Basic Systematic Materials Selection section, we introduce the materials selection methodology popularized by Professor Mike Ashby. The third course in this learning track will cover performance indices, a key metric in the Ashby selection methodology. The fourth and final course will cover advanced systematic materials selection, specifically objectives in conflict.
