Professional Components
of Relevance
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MST
Home
Bicycle
Materials
Parts
& Design
Material
Selection
Case
Study
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There are three major professional components that
contribute, and are relevant to the senior project requirement in the Material
Science and Engineering (MSE) department curriculum: integration of
knowledge, social aspects, and economic aspects. The chosen senior project is
educational case study on bicycle materials selection to be presented on a
website to encourage material science interest in pre-college students. This
report has briefly introduced the senior project and defined it in an executive summary. Our integration of knowledge is
described as used in this project from the MSE curriculum classes. The social
and economic aspects are also presented to give a broadened view of the
project’s application in a general sense; and followed by our conclusion. Integration
of Knowledge Our
integration of knowledge that is used in our senior project from the MSE
curriculum, lays in three major class categories. The three categories are
the core classes, MSE classes, and electives. All these classes directly
relate to our integration of knowledge. All of the classes that are mentioned
I the student have taken, completed, and incorporated into my knowledge base. Core Classes We
will just summarize the important incorporation of knowledge of the core
classes. The core classes are classes
needed for every engineering discipline; the foundation of all engineering
practice. We can define these core classes into three groups: basic,
engineering, and technical writing. The
basic classes would be the Calculus series (Math 124, 125, & 126), the
Chemistry series (Chem 142 & 152), and the
Physics series (Phys 121, 122, & 123) all of these relate physical
science to processed formulaic understanding. This
understanding is then related to the core engineering classes of AA 210 Statics, EE 215 Electrical Circuits, CEE 220 Mechanics of
Materials, ME 230 Dynamics, and ChemE 260
Thermodynamics. In these classes the physical science understanding from the
basics is used and applied to solve engineering problems. The resulting
fundamental engineering solution techniques can be applied in solving
material design and selection for this case study. In
the technical writing classes (TC 231 & TC 333), I developed very
important editing and writing skills to be applied in the senior project. In
TC 231, I even wrote a paper on how to design, build, and publish a
commercial website. MSE Classes We
will just list the relevant MSE classes and briefly explain the applied
knowledge to the senior project case study. MSE 170 Fundamentals of
Materials Science The MSE Laboratory classes MSE
317, MSE 318, and MSE 319, as well as MSE 399;
helped with my understanding of experimental techniques, materials processing
and mechanical properties of materials, which apply to material and part
design in this case study. MSE 300 Introduction to
Materials Science and Engineering MSE 305 Phase Equilibria MSE 314 X-ray Diffraction MSE 315 Kinetics Processing
in Materials MSE 316 Mechanical Behavior
of Materials MSE 330 Processing of
Inorganic Materials MSE 431 Physical Materials
Principles MSE 442 Materials
Processing II MSE 322 Thermal Material
Systems MSE 466 Physical Properties
of Materials CerE 470 Refractories Elective Classes Some
of the physics elective classes that I took which contributed to project
applied understanding are Phys 224, Phys 225, and Phys 341. Phys 224 and Phys
225 gave me understanding of some element and atomic theory that can tell us
about material properties/limitations of materials considered in this case
study. Phys 341 is a class on energy and the environment, showing that the
world energy consumption must be reduced (e.g. The reason why I encourage
bicycle use and environmental material design as in the case study). Social
Aspects When considering the social aspects upon the
conclusion of this senior project, we can state impacts that relate to the
overall website design and the contributed case study of bicycle material
selection. The most important related aspects are communication, ethical
issues, professional issues, and the informational impact on the website
readers. Communication is very important when we consider
the project group and the website readers. We succeed as a group in
communication by using email and close interaction through group meetings and
peer counseling. Upon project completion the most
important aspect of the website is to inform and motivate the readers. This
is only done by presenting information through good editing skills with focus
on attracting the target audience’s attention. The ethical issue that is of the most concern to
our project is copyright laws and erroneous facts presented to our audience.
We can overcome the copyright issue by keeping careful account of references
cited and consulted. Also research should be carefully reviewed by peers as
well as the by group advisor before final presentation in website. The website will also have professional issues when
dealing with website design and material science profession itself. Website
design and content must follow standard Internet coding to allow for
different software use while maintaining website integrity. This website also
must have a positive impact on the material science world with a strong
influence towards engineering design. The
purpose of this educational website is to influence Junior High to High
School students to take an interest in material science engineering. The
website is already in place (online). Each case study will be added to it as
a reference to make it informational driven web design including the
definitions that go with each case study. Each case study when presented on
the website should peak some interest, give understanding and encourage growth
in the material science knowledge of its readers. Economic
Aspects When looking at the economic
aspects we should consider overall website building cost and the cost of the
maintenance. For building cost is the key contributors
are research and web development. Research in our case can be thought of as
free; but for student(s) time, advisor’s time, and technical/media support
given by MSE department and the University faculties. Web development will
mainly rely on each group member’s case study/information layout, with some
cost related to professional web developer labor for the professional editing
and publishing. In general, all these costs will be covered by
curriculum/tuition money and paid University faculty labor. |