Materials Technology & Materials Science
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Materials Technology & Materials Science (Author: Prof. Dr. H.-J. Radusch)
The beginnings of materials development
The empirical development of materials began in prehistoric times, when people learnt to process natural materials in order to make better use of them for everyday purposes. The further development of materials was very closely linked to the cultural and historical development of civilisation. Entire eras were labelled according to the dominance of different materials. With the increase in knowledge about the production of materials and their further processing and the mutual influence of technological processes, technical and scientific penetration began and with it a broadening of the areas of application (see Material & Werkstoff).
From materials technology to materials Science
In the middle of the 19th century, systematic but still strongly empirical research into the properties of steel, iron or light metals such as aluminium and ceramic materials began, from which the field of materials technology developed. The term “materials technology” (German term: Werkstoffkunde) was used, whereby the word “-kunde” was intended to express the fact that it covered the totality of all empirically recorded facts about materials – initially mainly metallic materials [1]. At the same time, ‘customer’ was also the usual German term for other fields of knowledge that dealt with the study of the same. In English-speaking countries, the term ‘ materials science’ was immediately coined and used for ‘Werkstoffkunde’ [2, 3]. It was mainly metallurgy from which materials technology emerged as a scientific discipline [4].
At the beginning of the 20th century, a more differentiated view of materials developed as industrialisation progressed. In addition to conventional metals, non-metallic-organic and non-metallic-inorganic materials gained increasing economic importance, which resulted in the need to teach new subjects in vocational training and at universities that related to all groups of materials.
The historical increase in knowledge was the starting point for the textbook “Einführung in die Werkstoffwissenschaft (Introduction to Materials Science)" [5] by Prof. Dr Werner Schatt, first published in 1972, which is based on a uniform and at the same time organising approach to the structure, the type of arrangement and the degree of order of the building blocks and places structure–property relationships at the centre of the considerations. Materials science is concerned with the atomic structure, the resulting microscopic structure, the resulting macroscopic properties and in particular with the systematic improvement of the application possibilities of all material groups [5] from a generalised methodological point of view.
With the diversity of materials and the deepening of knowledge, the use of the terms ‘Werkstoffwissenchaft (Materials science)’ and ‘Werkstofftechnik (materials engineering)’ has subsequently become established in research, teaching and practice in German-speaking countries. At present, the term ‘materials science’ or ‘materials science and technology’, which also corresponds to the English term ‘materials science’ or ‘materials science and technology’, seems to be used to characterise the field of materials science in German-speaking countries [6].
Materials science focuses on the structural aspects of all material groups, whereas materials engineering is more focused on the manufacturing and processing methods of materials, the determination of their physical and mechanical properties and the structure–property relationships, taking into account the influence of processing conditions and application behaviour. However, the topics of the teaching and research subjects are interrelated in terms of content.
Schatt and Worch [7] pointed out that the uniform approach to all materials means that there can only be one ‘materials science’. To speak in the plural would be to hinder the epistemological development of the scientific discipline in its unity. Regardless of this, there are also counterexamples where the plural has been used in institutions, in textbook titles [8] and in current degree programme titles [9, 10]. Currently, a broader variation of terms is used to describe this field of science in order to express specifics or specialisations. In Germany, Austria and Switzerland, for example, the following terms are used to describe degree programmes
- Werkstoffwissenschaft
- Werkstoffwissenschaften
- Materialwissenschaft
- Materialwissenschaften
- Werkstofftechnik
- Werkstoff- und Materialwissenschaften
- Materialwissenschaft und Werkstofftechnik
- Advanced Materials Science and Engineering (En)
- Materials Engineering (International Profile)
The name of the degree programme ‘Werkstoffwissenschaft’ in the singular is now only used by the Technical Universities of Dresden and Ilmenau and the University of Jena.
The Technical University of Berlin has renamed the previous degree programme ‘Werkstoffwissenschaften’ to ‘Materials Science and Engineering’ [11].
Irrespective of the different names, materials science has now firmly established itself as an independent scientific discipline in the basic technical disciplines, e.g. in mechanical engineering or process engineering, by integrating empirically gathered factual knowledge with theoretical laws. This has led to insights that have opened up new fields of application for the special properties of materials, e.g. in medicine and medical technology, aerospace, microelectronics and computer technology or in competitive sports.
See also
References
| [1] | Eisenkolb, F.: Einführung in die Werkstoffkunde. Verlag Technik Berlin (1958); (see AMK-Library under L 24) |
| [2] | Hummel, R. E.: Understanding Materials Science History, Properties, Applications, 2nd Ed., New York, NY, Springer New York (2005). LLC, ISBN 978-0-387-26691-6 |
| [3] | Timeline of materials technology; In: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_materials_science |
| [4] | Cahn, R. W.: Metallurgy, the Father of Materials Science. Tsingiiua Science and Technology, Volume 7, Issue 1 (2002); ISSN 1007-0214 01/21 pp. 1–5 |
| [5] | Schatt, W. (Hrsg.): Einführung in die Werkstoffwissenschaft. Deutscher Verlag für Grundstoffindustrie (1972); (see AMK-Library under L 3-1) |
| [6] | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materials_science and for the disambiguation the equivalent german article |
| [7] | Schatt, W., Worch, H. (Eds.): Werkstoffwissenschaft. Deutscher Verlag für Grundstoffindustrie Stuttgart (1996); (see AMK-Library under L 3-2) |
| [8] | Ilscher, B.: Werkstoffwissenschaften. Eigenschaften, Vorgänge, Technologien. Springer Berlin Heidelberg New York (1987); see AMK-Library under L 83 |
| [9] | https://www.hochschulkompass.de/ingenieurwissenschaften/werkstoff-und-materialwissenschaften.html |
| [10] | StudiScan: Deutschland / Österreich /Schweiz; https://www.studieren-studium.com/master/materialwissenschaften-und-werkstofftechnik |
| [11] | https://www.tu.berlin/studieren/studienangebot/gesamtes-studienangebot/studiengang/materialwissenschaft-und-werkstofftechnik-b-sc |
Weblinks
- Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia: Werkstoff; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werkstoff
- Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia: Materialwissenschaft und Werkstofftechnik; https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialwissenschaft_und_Werkstofftechnik
- Grellmann, W., Bierögel, C., Reincke, K. (Eds.): Wiki „Lexicon Polymer Testing & Diagnostic“ Version 15.0 (2025); http://wiki.polymerservice-merseburg.de/