Materials and Process Selection for Structural Applications

In recent years, materials and process selection methods have been developped in order to guide engineering design toward the most efficient solutions for structural components. In order to be efficient, the procedure of choice has to enter the very first steps of conceptual design, much before detailed strutural mechanics calculations can be performed. In order to be potentially innovative, the selection process has to be able to compare on an objective basis a wide range of possible materials and processes. The large number of available solutions (50000 to 80000 materials, 8000 processes), and the huge quantity of informations to be treated naturally suggests the necessity of a computer aided selection procedure. The first systematic attempt to provide generic methods for selecting materials [1] and processes [2] was proposed by M.F.Ashby and was implemented as a software [3]. The basic concepts for materials and process selection, as detailed in reference [4] will be outlined in §2. The current state of the art as far as computer aided selection in design is concerned will be presented in §3, with a special emphasis on the applications of these methods into developping new materials for structural applications. In §4, we will outline some of the problems encountered when materials and process selection have to be coupled. The possible role of physical metallurgy and micromechanics into the development of specific tools will be outlined. In conclusion, we will stress the limitations of the approaches and the current developments to try to overcome them.