Assessment 2 Material Suitability Assessment (Individual)

Weighting: 30% Individual mark

Due: Week 9 tutorial

Mandatory: No

Threshold: No

Word Count: 2500 words

Task Overview

In this assessment you will demonstrate that you can apply the steps of a material selection process to an existing application. You will select an application based on your preference and deliver a report that addresses specific focus points to demonstrate your understanding.

Task Instructions

This assessment is a materials research task where you need to investigate the suitability of a material for a given application and recommend an alternative material that is more sustainable. The task therefore contains two distinct phases: Phase 1) Requires you to translate an existing application into design requirements and to evaluate how the currently selected material meets these in real life. These must include functional requirements as well as processing/manufacturing requirements, and other requirements such as those relating to cost, reliability, and environmental factors. You must also consider aspects related to where the material is sourced, how it is

produced in raw form, and what are the actual or potential environmental issues.

Phase 2) Identify an alternative material and via a compare/contrast approach, demonstrate that it improves the environmental impact/sustainability of the solution but may be technically inferior in some aspects.

This task is a written report and must address the focus points outlined below. They should be addressed via the following generalised report construction:

• Abstract: Summaryof the report, containing aim, approach, and
• Introduction: Contextualinformation relating to the selected application and
• Discussion: Detailedaddress of focus points and key steps, not addressed already in the
• Conclusions: Outcomesof the
• References: (notincluded in word count)

The focus points that must be addressed in your report are:

1. Describe the application. You are free to focus on a specific aspect or context of the application but must consider a single component only. You must also provide sufficient detail to inform the relevant design requirements such that a hypothetical Initial Screening Process could be undertaken.
2. Identify and establish:
3. The functional requirement(s) of the component
4. The constraints (hard and soft)

1. The objectives
2. The free variables

Consider the broad range of material properties including mechanical, thermal, electrical, cost, embodied energy/carbon etc. Provide a brief justification for the consideration of all requirements/constraints/objectives/variables.

3. Test the design requirements by performing an Initial Screening Process and thereby link the selected material to the application.Is the selected material a close match on all criteria or are their compromises? Discuss, with consideration for the relative importance of the different requirements.
4. Under take a Ranking Process and identify one alternative material which could substitute for the selected material but is superior with respect to environmental impact and sustainability. The alternate material may be commercially available or still experimental. Compare/contrast the selected and alternative materials and discuss:

1. Where each material comes from geographically and how are they produced?
2. What is the annual production volume and typical price for each material?
3. What are the environmental impacts associated with production, distribution, utilisation, and end of life of each material for the given application?
4. How could the details ina-c change between now and 2050?
5. Base don the consideration of all of the above, discuss why theselected material or the alternative material is likely to be best suited for the application in If you decide that the selected material is to remain the best solution, discuss what would need to happen to change this outcome? If this change occurred, would it favour the alternative material or lead to a third solution? Articulate the outcome of this discussion in the form of a conclusion.

Applications

Select an application and selected material from the following table to be the focus of your research.

Resources

For this task, you are expected to use Scopus and Granta Edupack to source relevant material content. You are also free to use other resources provided that they are suitably referenced. The use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is permitted for the purposes of developing ideas, summarising literature, testing hypotheses etc. However, AI-derived content cannot be included in any aspect of the submitted assessment . All assessments will be scanned for AI-derived content and if discovered misconduct proceedings will be initiated even if AI is acknowledged.

Submission requirements

Your report must be submitted in the form of pdf document via vUWS upload. A submission portal will be provided for this.

Learning Outcomes addressed in this assignment

SLO 2 Identify materials properties that are relevant to a specific technical problem

SLO 3 Apply a systematic approach towards the selection of materials for a given scenario.

SLO 6 Professionally communicate methodology, analysis, and outcomes of a materials selection process in a range of different verbal and written formats.

Assessment 2 Marking Rubric