On extremity trends in advances of materials

Abstract

The science & technology of materials has grown phenomenally during the last five decades. This article is an attempt at an overview of not so much the myriad individual materials that have been made and used but of a more general nature in which we seek to understand the developments in the material - process - property system. We point out that resorting to extremities in each of these aspects is one discernible trend. Making materials with more than three or four components, using extremities in process temperature & pressure and having to evaluate material properties at very high strain rates are an illustration of the extremity trends apart from the now famous extremities in chemical state, namely, nano sizes and amorphousity. What emerges is that there is colossal room in these extreme situations for fundamental data generation, e.g., thermochemical and diffusion related parameters, and understanding of the underlying mechanisms so essential for developing predictive capability with respect to material behaviour.