Most Commonly Used Materials

The following 25 materials are the most commonly used materials in the
design of mechanical products; in themselves they represent the broad
range of other materials.

Steel and Cast Iron

1. 1020 (plain carbon steel, hot-rolled or cold-drawn)
2. 1040 (plain carbon steel, hot-rolled or cold-drawn)
3. 4140 (heat-treated alloy steel, chromium-molybdenum)
4. 4340 (heat-treated alloy steel, nickel-chromium-molybdenum)
5. S30400 (stainless steel)
6. S316 (stainless steel)
7. O1 (tool steel)
8. ASTM20-60 (gray cast iron)

Ken Youssefi UC Berkeley, ME Dept. 1

 Most Commonly Used Materials
Aluminum and Copper Alloys
9. 2024 (aluminum, O, T3, T4 or T6)
10. 3003 (aluminum, H12 or H16)
11. 6061 (aluminum, T6)
12. 7075 (aluminum, T6)
13. C268 (copper)

Other metals

14. Titanium 6-4

15. AZ63A (magnesium)

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 Most Commonly Used Materials
Plastics
16. ABS
17. Polycarbonate
18. Nylon 6/6
19. Polypropylene
20. Polystyrene
Ceramics
21. Alumina
22. Graphite
Composite materials
23. Douglas fir
24. Fiberglass
25. Graphite/epoxy
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 Application of Most Commonly Used Materials
Component Material

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 Application of Most Commonly Used Materials
Component Material

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 Application of Most Commonly Used Materials
Component Material

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 Properties of Most Commonly Used Materials

Ultimate
Strength in
tension

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 Properties of Most Commonly used Materials

Yield strength

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 Properties of Most Commonly used Materials

Fatigue
endurance limit
(strength under
cyclic loading)

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 Properties of Most Commonly used Materials

Density

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 Cost of Most Commonly used Materials

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 Example – Materials for table legs
Luigi Tavolino, furniture designer, conceives of a lightweight table of
daring simplicity: a flat sheet of toughened glass supported on slender,
unbraced, cylindrical legs. The legs must be solid (to make them thin)
and as light as possible (to make the table easier to move). They must
support the table top and whatever is placed upon it without buckling.
What materials could one recommend.

Ken Youssefi UC Berkeley, ME Dept. 12

 Example – Materials for table legs
The Model

The leg is a slender column of density ρ and modulus E. The load

P and its length l are determined by design (fixed). The radius r of
the leg is a variable. We wish to minimize the mass m of he leg.

Objective function

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 Example – Materials for table legs
The constraint is that the legs must support a design load without buckling.

Euler’s buckling equation

Using I = πr4/4 and solving for the free variable , r, and substituting it into
the equation for m gives,

Material properties
The weight is minimized by selecting the subset of materials with the
greatest value of the material index.

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 Example – Materials for table legs
Solving the Euler’s formula for r, gives an equation for the thinest leg
which will not buckle:

Material properties

The thinnest leg is that made of the material with the largest value of the
material index.

Two material indices,

To minimize the weight, both have to be maximize.

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 Procedure for deriving material indices

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 Modulus of Elasticity (E) vs. Density (ρ) Charts

Constant
guidelines

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 Modulus of Elasticity (E) vs. Density (ρ) Charts

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 Modulus of Elasticity (E) vs. Density (ρ) Charts

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Ken Youssefi UC Berkeley, ME Dept. 20
 Summary of materials for table legs

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