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Asked by emma88762 to Huw, Gosha, Ray, Stacey, Steve on 10 Mar 2015.
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Stacey Cutten answered on 10 Mar 2015:
Oh good question, I love this one!
This really depends on the purpose of what the material is being used for as they all have very different properties! I absolutely love the aesthetic look of wood (natural not man-made), how no 2 pieces are the same! But, metal is very very important for structural purposes in civil engineering, for example, bridges. Also, plastic extremely important, most of our clothes these days are made from plastic (e.g. polyester) – it could be very awkward to imagine a life without it………
As an engineer I guess you learn to appreciate each different material for its own unique qualities!
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Gosha Barzowska answered on 10 Mar 2015:
If I have to choose: Wood will be my first choice. As an apprentice I do work placements around Airbus and one of them was working for a department called Protospace where we make protoypes out of mainly wood but also aluminium and nylon. The best thing I have ever made was a wooden mock-up wing box for design tests (check out photos on my profile to see exactly what I am talking about). I rally enjoyed it becuase it made me relax! Wood has some magical therapeutical powers! 🙂 I am thinking about building my own wood furniture for my house next year and use the skills I gained during that placement.
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Huw Williams answered on 10 Mar 2015:
Hi Emma,
Metal wins every time out of those 3. Metals like Titanium are stronger, lighter and tougher than almost any woods or plastics you can find. Some even have incredible properties like super conduction or being able to remain solid at temperatures well above their normal melting point.
There’s one big group missing from your question though and that’s composites. These are products which combine the properties of different materials to produce an even better one. A common example is Carbon Fibre, this takes a normal plastic resin and reinforces it with a woven mesh of carbon. This produces a really stiff sheet which you can be moulded to almost any shape. We’re starting to see more and more of these materials in Engineering now and their usefulness is only just being understood.
Huw
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Steve Cox answered on 11 Mar 2015:
Metal – it’s the material that drove The Industrial Revolution all those years ago and fired the imagination of some of the greatest engineers to have ever lived
Comments
Cryslaliser commented on :
I think plastic because like Stacey said, it is used in clothing.