Question

Explain how understanding the way materials behave can allow scientists to design technology.

Answer 1

Answer and Explanation:

Materials are generally categorized into four main groups: metals, polymers, ceramics, and composites. Here are major types of material properties. They include: Physical, Chemical, Thermal, Acoustical, Mechanical, Optical, Electrical and Magnetic. These properties influence the way materials behave under certain conditions and environment, it is these behavioral changes of materials that scientists exploits to create new and different technologies.

There has been a major impact on material science due to the rapid rate of scientific discovery and new technologies, giving scientists many more materials from which to choose for their products. Advent of these new materials have given place for smart new products or quality classic designs.

Making the right choice of material is a complex and also a difficult task considering the numerous physical, chemical, optical, electrical, magnetic, thermal, aesthetic, mechanical and other appropriate properties to consider. Also, environmental, ethical and moral issues surrounding the right choice of materials for use in any product, service or system for design also need to be considered.

Materials would be developed to have specific properties. The development of new materials allows designers to be able to create new products, thereby solving old problems in numerous new ways. For instance, the explosion of plastic materials after the second world war made it possible to create new products without using valuable metals.

It is therefore the understanding of these material's behaviors after series of laboratory and industrial experiments have been carried out on them that scientists would take advantage of in order to create new designs.

For example, materials with photochromicity behaviors, that is, ability to change colors when exposed to light, can be useful for creating sunglasses lenses that darkens as the sun brightens.

The behavior of the choice of material was understood first through series of experiments which then helped the scientists to design such kind of sunglasses.