BBC Four "How It Works" by Mark Miodownik

. We have added five clips from the BBC Four mini-series "How It Works" presented by Mark Miodownik. The series tell us how we transform materials, and materials transform the world, and reveals the secret alchemy of material science. The clips  explore metals, plastics, ceramics, with particular emphasis on graphene, semiconductors, aluminium and Bakelite.

Click here to view the videos from the BBC Four website
[Only available to viewers in the UK]

Graphene can distil alcohol - study

Membranes based on the "miracle material" graphene can be used to distil alcohol, according to a new study in Science journal. 

Andrei Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from the University of Manchester were awarded 2010's Nobel Prize in physics for their discovery, outlined in a scientific paper in 2004.

New interactive Flash Movies released from the DoITPoMs.

We have published a number of newly released interactive Flash Movies from the DoITPoMs Teaching and Learning Packages (TLPs)at the University of Cambridge. The DoITPoMS TLPs each focus on a common materials science topic met with in undergraduate teaching and learning. Many of theTLPs include video clips from experiments, along with standard features such as an introduction, summary, questions and answers, references for further study, and links to the MATTER Glossary of Materials Science.

The animations are now available for downloading and running from your local system under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share-Alike license.

Click here to view the Teaching and Learning Packages (TLPs) from the DoITPoMs.

CORE-Materials site is restored now

The CORE-Materials site was affected by a power outage at the University of Liverpool, following a major environmental issue in the Brownlow Hill Building machine room overnight. The service is now restored back to normal. 

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by the unavailability of CORE-Materials over last three days.

University of Liverpool major power outage on 7 of October 2011

Following a major environmental issue in the Brownlow Hill Building machine room overnight, CORE-Materials and other our servers were affected by a power outage at the University of Liverpool and will hopefully be restored on Monday.
We apologise for the inconvenience caused by the unavailability of these services over the days ahead.

Quasicrystals

The 2011 Nobel prize for chemistry has been awarded to Professor Daniel Shechtman for his discovery of the structure of quasicrystals. We are putting together a small package of open educational resources relating to quasicrystals for those of you wishing to use them in your teaching or learning.

Atomic model of Ag-Al quasicrystal
By AMES lab., US Department of Energy
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Forming and Testing Techniques for Composite Materials

Two series of powerpoint slides and images showing forming and testing techniques for the characterisation of composite materials have been released recently. The slides are adapted from the University of Liverpool "Composite Materials" lectures [MATS311] and "Advanced Composite Materials" lectures [MATS411] by Prof. W. Cantwell.

The series  are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license. 

Two resources on sustainability from Granta Design just added

Granta Design Ltd has donated two resources on the topic of sustainability created by Mike Ashby, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge. The first is a video of Mike Ashby doing a simple eco audit case study and the second is a powerpoint lecture unit that the case study comes from. They are both released under Creative Commons licenses.

Materials in Cricket

To celebrate the 2011 Cricket World Cup currently being played in Bangladesh, India, and Sri Lanka, we have added a number of resources relating to the use of materials in cricket, including bats, balls and protective gear. Howzat?

Photo CC BY-SA by Powru

Addition of some copyrighted resources

In addition to our collection of Open Educational Resources (OERs), we have now started to add links to a number of external online resources that are subject to copyright. These resources will always appear at the end of any results listing in the Resource Finder and are clearly identified by colour and by the © logo. Although we remain committed to adding further OERs to the CORE-Materials database, we do hope you will find the additional copyright resources listings useful.

Composites and plastics properties from SubsTech

Two packages from SubsTech have been released: Ceramic Matrix Composites and Thermoplastics. They contain properties data sheets on these materials and  are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license. The properties include: density, modulus of elasticity, tensile strength, compressive strength, shear strength, thermal expansion (at 20 °C), thermal conductivity, glass transition temperature, maximum work temperature, electric resistivity and dielectric constant.

SubsTech (Substances & Technologies) is a free and open knowledge source in Materials Engineering. The site contains a wide range of illustrated articles on metals, ceramics, polymers, composites and fluids including fundamentals of materials engineering, materials properties, applications and manufacturing technologies.

Energy Production & Conservation from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Energy Production & Conservation package from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has been released recently. It contains images on energy production and conservation created at PNNL, which are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike license.

PNNL is one of the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) ten national laboratories, which performs research in energy, environment, and national security fields.

Nuclear Energy and Nanophotonics from Argonne National Laboratory

Two packages from Argonne National Laboratory have been released: Nuclear Energy and Nanophotonics. They contain images on different aspects of nuclear energy research and nanophotonics correspondingly and are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license.

Argonne National Laboratory conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every area of science and technology.

Animation of aluminium extrusion process

We have added an animation illustrating a complete cycle of aluminium extrusion production, including die heating and transfer, billet heating, transfer to press, extrusion, cooling, sawing, stretching, stacking and ageing.

The animation is available in Flash format (SWF) and as a video on YouTube and is released for re-use under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license.

A course on nanosciene and technology from NanoHUB.org

"Introduction to Nano Science and Technology" package from NanoHUB.org has been released. This is a comprehensive course consisting of presentations, notes and flash animations with audio narritives. The course covers topics in fundamental nanoscale science, plus an overview of areas in nanotechnology.
 

NanoHUB.org packages are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license. NanoHUB.org is a resource for nanoscience and technology, created by the NSF-funded Network for Computational Nanotechnology.

Views of TALAT lectures pass 200,000 mark

151 of TALAT lectures from TALAT package on CORE-materials have received number of reads of  107,296 on Slideshare and 97,016 on Scribd respectively. TALAT - Training in Aluminium Application Technologies - is the most comprehensive collection of aluminium  training materials for engineers and researchers in industry and universities.

Material Selection Case Studies from Granta Design released

A set of seven interactive material selection case studies, which use performance indices, has been just released. They are based on projects in the book "Materials Selection for Mechanical Design" by Mike Ashby, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge and the CES EduPack, a materials education resource created by Granta Design Ltd. The animations are available under a Creative Commons Attribution -NonCommercial - ShareAlike license.

Two modules from OpenLearn released

"OpenLearn: Manufacturing Processes" and "OpenLearn: Introduction to Polymers" packages have been released.  

All OpenLearn packages are released under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike license. OpenLearn gives you free access to learning materials from The Open University.

Teaching Engineering textbook by Peter J. Goodhew now released

We have now released Teaching Engineering textbook by Peter J. Goodhew under a BY-SA Creative Commons license.

This book is aimed at practising teachers of engineering and physical sciences at undergraduate or taught postgraduate level. It is intended to be based on clear research evidence and to explain as clearly as possible what the educational terminology actually means for the lecturer.

The book can be also viewed on Scribd and in the UKCME site.