Evolution and advancement of human civilization have always been prompted by the development of new materials. At each and every stages of human development any kind of application has been elevated only by pursuing relentless effort to develop and upgrade the material. When a material seemed to have given the best of it, finding the next generation of material has always been the biggest concern for the scientists and engineers. Following this never-ending relentless pursuit of the best material, the world now has entered into the age of science and technology where materials are now being handled at nano-scale level which has laid the ground for new possibilities for future.
Just take a minute and look around you. You will discover that everything and everything is built with some kind of materials. Whether we step into our home or into a space shuttle, each and every object consists of a certain type of material that offers some specific properties which we use for our benefit. Hence the properties give the material its value. This is when Materials and Metallurgical Engineering comes to play. It is the job of a Materials scientist/engineer to find the right material for any required property.
Materials and metallurgical engineering is a highly creative and diversified field of engineering, devoted to reveal the properties of materials by using the principles of physical and natural sciences and then make them suitable for a particular application by optimizing engineering and technological aspects. The analyses of materials are done at best at atomic level investigations as the greatest discoveries would suggest. Atomic level study of materials discloses the way atoms are arranged in general or under particular circumstances in a material, how they react upon the application of force, heat, environmental variation, electric field, etc., and how their arrangement changes with materials processing. Such approach eases the understanding of structure-property relationships and helps to develop new materials for structural, mechanical, electrical, chemical and environmental applications.
Lastly, it is up to a materials and metallurgical scientist to develop materials that are economic and environmentally friendly. Development of material and maximization of properties breaks the limit of any fields of engineering and set a new height to work on. In that sense, Materials and Metallurgical Engineering is truly one of the most amazing engineering disciplines to work with.