Week 5: Design for Materials

In this lesson we learnt about how materials can affect the product design in order to use those material properties. An example used in class is the hair dryer which went through drastic changes from its initial conception in the late 1800s to our current time.

Another example is the ceramic knives, where the traditional stainless steel blades were substituted for ceramic that has several advantages over stainless steel. The ceramic knives are found to stay sharper longer, they are stainless, they do not transfer ions which would oxidize cut fruits, they are non porous which prevents bacterial growth and the ceramic knife is lighter than their stainless steel counterpart.

However, using ceramic has made the knife brittle and more susceptible to chipping in comparison to their stainless steel counterpart. This trade off raises the question of whether such a trade off is worth it. As sacrificing the durability which is a key material property in exchange for other material attributes would be sacrificing the users demands. Hence, i came to realize that there is a fine line of designing a product around a new material and using a new material to inspire better product design.

After that, we were taught how discovering a new material can affect many things. New material will lead to more material attributes that can bring more product applications. These new applications will inspire more research in finding better materials that can fulfill the design requirements of the new product application. Similarly, better materials and new applications may lead to a different product designs.

After the lesson, we were sent off to do an assignment to find a material, figure out its material properties and possible applications. With these information, we were to find a situation where we can use this material as a substitute for another material in a product and next we were to find out how this material can enhance the functionality of the product through changes in its design.

The material we picked was graphene which is a relatively new material that was discovered recently. It comprises of solely carbon and it is know to be one of the strongest yet lightest materials currently.

Graphene has very good material properties. Its material properties are its:

• High thermal conductivity

• High electrical conductivity

• High elasticity and flexibility

• High hardness

• High resistance. Graphene is approximately 200 times stronger than steel

• Ionizing radiation is not affected

• Able to generate electricity by exposure to sunlight

• Transparent material

• High density which doesn’t let Helium atoms pass, but it does allow the passage of water, which evaporates at the same speed as if it were in an open container.

• Antibacterial effect. Bacteria are not able to grow in it.

• Low Joule effect, heating when conducting electrons.

• Low electricity consumption compared to other compounds

Overall graphene can be considered a miracle material however, due to its high production costs graphene has limited applications currently.

We decided that graphene can be used as a substitute for fabrics like cotton in clothes where. This is due to graphene low density and strong resistance and durability. However, due to its high costs, trace amounts of graphene would be infused with the fabric instead of pure graphene. Since, graphene is used we can make changes to the product design by makin the cloths thinner as its resistance.

Written by: Samuel