What will I actually learn in this materials science course?

You'll learn how engineers connect a material's structure to its properties, performance, and method of manufacture. It starts with the main classes of engineering materials and atomic-scale behavior, then builds into mechanical performance, failure, heat treatment, and semiconductor behavior. For example, you'll learn to read stress-strain curves and phase diagrams so you can explain why materials perform differently in real applications.

Do I need any background before starting this course?

You don't appear to need prior materials science coursework, though some comfort with basic chemistry, physics, and graphs will help. The course moves into crystal structures, stress-strain behavior, and the Arrhenius relationship fairly quickly, so it's easier if ideas like atoms, bonds, and temperature effects aren't completely new. If you're already studying engineering or a related science, the pace will likely feel more natural.

Is this course beginner-friendly for materials science?

It's beginner-friendly for materials science if you're comfortable with basic science ideas and want a broad engineering overview. The course starts with material categories and structure-property relationships, then uses them to explain deformation, fracture, heat treatment, and semiconductors. If you want a slower introduction with lots of lab work or remedial science review, it may feel more compact than a course built for absolute beginners.

How long does it take to complete this course?

Plan on about 9 hours in total. That makes it a short course rather than a long commitment, with time divided between lessons and review quizzes. The workload is straightforward: you'll move through lessons, follow worked examples, and check your understanding in quizzes.

Are there hands-on exercises, projects, or labs in this course?

There aren't labs or open-ended projects. The practical side comes through short quizzes and instructor-led examples, such as interpreting stress-strain behavior or following how phase diagrams relate to processing. That setup works well if you want to apply each idea as you learn it, but it isn't the kind of course where you run experiments or complete a capstone.

What skills and topics are covered in this course?

You'll cover how materials are classified, how structure affects properties, and how temperature and processing change behavior over time. The course also spends time on mechanical performance and failure, including stress-strain analysis and fracture toughness, before moving into phase transformations and semiconductor conductivity. Overall, it's a broad survey of how engineers analyze, compare, and choose materials in real design contexts.

What can I actually do after finishing this course?

After finishing, you should be able to explain why a material behaves the way it does and discuss its likely strengths, limits, and processing needs. You'll be able to interpret common engineering views of materials, such as a stress-strain curve or a phase diagram, and connect them to issues like creep, fatigue, or brittle failure. That's a useful outcome if you want to make better sense of material choices and failure risks in engineering work.

Is this course more focused on theory or hands-on learning?

It's more concept-focused, with guided practice rather than hands-on labs. Most of the learning comes from explanation-rich lessons and worked examples, with quizzes to check that you can interpret the main ideas.

Why would I choose this course over other materials science courses?

James Shackelford teaches the subject through ten big ideas, so the course feels like a coherent tour of what engineers most need to know. Instead of staying narrow, it links structure, properties, failure, manufacturing, and semiconductor behavior in a compact sequence, with recurring examples like steel, solder, and electronic materials. Choose this course if you want a concise, concept-driven overview before moving into a more specialized or lab-heavy materials course.

Materials Science: 10 Things Every Engineer Should Know

Instructor: James Shackelford

110,514 already enrolled

Included with

Learn more

5 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

4,526 reviews

9 hours to complete

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

98%

Most learners liked this course

5 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

4,526 reviews

9 hours to complete

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

98%

Most learners liked this course

Skills you'll gain

Details to know

Shareable certificate

Add to your LinkedIn profile

Assessments

11 assignments

Taught in English

91% of learners achieved a positive career outcome

See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills

Learn more about Coursera for Business

logos of Petrobras, TATA, Danone, Capgemini, P&G and L'Oreal

There are 5 modules in this course

We explore “10 things” that range from the menu of materials available to engineers in their profession to the many mechanical and electrical properties of materials important to their use in various engineering fields. We also discuss the principles behind the manufacturing of those materials.

By the end of the course, you will be able to: * Recognize the important aspects of the materials used in modern engineering applications, * Explain the underlying principle of materials science: “structure leads to properties,” * Identify the role of thermally activated processes in many of these important “things” – as illustrated by the Arrhenius relationship. * Relate each of these topics to issues that have arisen (or potentially could arise) in your life and work. If you would like to explore the topic in more depth you may purchase Dr. Shackelford's Textbook: J.F. Shackelford, Introduction to Materials Science for Engineers, Eighth Edition, Pearson Prentice-Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2015

Module details

Welcome to week 1! In lesson one, you will learn to recognize the six categories of engineering materials through examples from everyday life, and we’ll discuss how the structure of those materials leads to their properties. Lesson two explores how point defects explain solid state diffusion. We will illustrate crystallography – the atomic-scale arrangement of atoms that we can see with the electron microscope. We will also describe the Arrhenius Relationship, and apply it to the number of vacancies in a crystal. We’ll finish by discussing how point defects facilitate solid state diffusion, and applying the Arrhenius Relationship to solid state diffusion.

What's included

10 videos2 assignments

10 videosTotal 41 minutes

Course Introduction3 minutes
Six Categories of Engineering Materials8 minutes
Structure Leads to Properties6 minutes
Summary2 minutes
Crystallography and the Electron Microscope7 minutes
Introduction to the Arrhenius Relationship6 minutes
The Arrhenius Relationship Applied to the Number of Vacancies in a Crystal4 minutes
Point Defects and Solid State Diffusion3 minutes
The Arrhenius Relationship Applied to Solid State Diffusion3 minutes
Summary1 minute

2 assignmentsTotal 60 minutes

Thing 130 minutes
Thing 230 minutes

Welcome to week 2! In lesson three we will discover how dislocations at the atomic-level structure of materials explain plastic (permanent) deformation. You will learn to define a linear defect and see how materials deform through dislocation motion. Lesson four compares stress versus strain, and introduces the “Big Four” mechanical properties of elasticity, yield strength, tensile strength, and ductility. You’ll assess what happens beyond the tensile strength of an object. And you’ll learn about a fifth important property – toughness.

What's included

10 videos2 assignments

10 videosTotal 34 minutes

Defining a Linear Defect - the Dislocation5 minutes
Plastic Deformation by Dislocation Motion8 minutes
Summary0 minutes
The Stress versus Strain (Tensile) Test4 minutes
The “Big Four” Mechanical Properties3 minutes
Focusing on Strength and Stiffness4 minutes
Beyond the Tensile Strength4 minutes
Focusing on Ductility2 minutes
A Fifth Parameter – Toughness2 minutes
Summary1 minute

2 assignmentsTotal 60 minutes

Thing 330 minutes
Thing 430 minutes

Welcome to week 3! In lesson five we’ll explore creep deformation and learn to analyze a creep curve. We’ll apply the Arrhenius Relationship to creep deformation and identify the mechanisms of creep deformation. In lesson six we find that the phenomenon of ductile-to-brittle transition is related to a particular crystal structure (the body-centered cubic). We’ll also learn to plot the ductile-to-brittle transition for further analysis.

What's included

8 videos2 assignments

8 videosTotal 34 minutes

Definition of Creep Deformation2 minutes
The Creep Curve5 minutes
Creep Deformation and the Arrhenius Relationship9 minutes
Mechanisms for Creep Deformation3 minutes
Summary1 minute
The Ductile-to-Brittle Transition and Crystal Structure7 minutes
Plotting the Ductile-to-Brittle Transition5 minutes
Summary2 minutes

2 assignmentsTotal 60 minutes

Thing 530 minutes
Thing 630 minutes

Welcome to week 4! In lesson seven we will examine the concept of critical flaws. We’ll define fracture toughness and critical flaw size with the design plot. We’ll also distinguish how we break things in good and bad ways. Lesson eight explores the concept of fatigue in engineering materials. We’ll define fatigue and examine the fatigue curve and fatigue strength. We’ll also identify mechanisms of fatigue.

What's included

10 videos2 assignments

10 videosTotal 43 minutes

Introducing the Concept of Critical Flaws3 minutes
Fracture Toughness and the Design Plot8 minutes
Critical Flaw Size and the Design Plot5 minutes
A Play of Good versus Evil!5 minutes
Summary1 minute
Introduction to Fatigue2 minutes
Defining Fatigue6 minutes
The Fatigue Curve and Fatigue Strength5 minutes
Mechanism of Fatigue6 minutes
Summary1 minute

2 assignmentsTotal 60 minutes

Thing 730 minutes
Thing 830 minutes

Welcome to week 5! In lesson nine we’ll deal with how to make things fast and slow. We’ll examine the lead-tin phase diagram and look at its practical applications as an example of making something slowly. Then we’ll evaluate the TTT diagram for eutectoid steel, and compare diffusional to diffusionless transformations with the TTT diagram, monitoring how we make things rapidly. Lesson ten is a brief history of semiconductors. Here, we discuss the role of semiconductor materials in the modern electronics industry. Our friend Arrhenius is back again, and this time we’re applying the Arrhenius Relationship to both intrinsic and extrinsic semiconductors. We’ll also look at combined intrinsic and extrinsic behavior.

What's included

12 videos3 assignments

12 videosTotal 55 minutes

Introduction to Phase Diagrams10 minutes
The Lead-Tin Phase Diagram2 minutes
The Competition Between Instability and Diffusion4 minutes
The TTT Diagram for Eutectoid Steel6 minutes
Diffusional Transformations3 minutes
Diffusionless Transformations4 minutes
Summary1 minute
A Brief History7 minutes
The Intrinsic Semiconductor5 minutes
The Extrinsic Semiconductor7 minutes
Combined Intrinsic and Extrinsic Behavior4 minutes
Summary1 minute

3 assignmentsTotal 90 minutes

Thing 930 minutes
Thing 1030 minutes
Ten Things Final30 minutes

Instructor

Instructor ratings

(1,222 ratings)

James Shackelford

University of California, Davis

1 Course110,514 learners

Offered by

University of California, Davis

Learner reviews

5 stars
76.22%
4 stars
20.03%
3 stars
2.96%
2 stars
0.50%
1 star
0.26%

Showing 3 of 4526

Reviewed on Nov 23, 2016

It is a really good course. I would recommend it to everyone interested in materials or engineering. This course helped me get a better understanding of some fundamental concepts of engineering.

Reviewed on Apr 12, 2020

The portion that teaches about phase diagrams, particularly about the TTT diagrams were not easily understood. Could have gone into a little bit of detail to make concepts more easy to digest

Reviewed on Jul 30, 2020

The course is nice and allows me to recover my 20-year old university knowledge (some topics) rapidly. I found some new and interesting things as well. Merci for the good materials to Instructor.

View more reviews